New Saudi-Sinopec oil refinery starts exports

Khobar, Saudi Arabia: A major new joint-venture refinery in Saudi Arabia on Thursday shipped its first clean diesel cargo, the company Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co (Yasref) said.

The start-up of the refinery is expected to weigh on diesel prices as the rise in supply will far outweigh demand, which has been sluggish because of weak economic growth, traders said. The 400,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and China’s Sinopec, started trial runs in September and had originally planned its first exports by November.

Yasref said in a statement it loaded 300,000 barrels of diesel from the refinery, located in Yanbu on the Red Sea coast.