QUARTER OUT SIDE NEWS BY NAIF QAHTANI
KBR announced that its newly-established Middle East-based Engineering Company has been awarded an engineering and project management services contract by the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) as part of its General Engineering Services Plus (GES+) initiative. The partners in this new Engineering Company, including Abdulhadi and Al-Moaibed Consulting Engineering Co. (AMCDE) and Kellogg, Brown and Root, were selected following a competitive bidding process.
\r\nSaudi Aramco has completed maintenance on a 305,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in Jubail on the Gulf coast, Reuters has reported, citing traders. The refinery, which is jointly owned by Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, was back online after maintenance lasted for about one month, the traders said. The state-owned company said it also raised its fully-owned Yanbu refinery capacity to 250,000 barrels per day and upgraded its crude tower trays as part of a total revamp to improve the diesel quality after a 38-day turnaround.
\r\nBelectric and Sun & Life are building the largest solar power plant of Saudi Arabia in Dhahran. The 10 Megawatts Photovoltaic Carport System is situated at the recently built North Park offices of Saudi Aramco in Dhahran and will cover all of the 4,500 parking spaces. Belectric, world market leader in Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) of solar power plants, executes the North Park Project in cooperation with Sun & Life, Regional Solar Pioneer in the Middle East, a subsidiary of Acwa Holding, Saudi Arabian Leader in developing private Power and Water generation projects infrastructure and utilities projects
\r\nSaudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG) has said it plans to merge with its unit National Petrochemical Co (Petrochem) and will build a $1.2bn petrochemical complex in 2012, Reuters has reported. The potential merger, expected to be completed within nine months, will create the third largest petrochemical firm in Saudi Arabia after Saudi Basic Industries (Sabic) and Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co. \"It does not make sense for us to have too many companies so we just want to collapse the two into one....we are in the process of soliciting offers now from banks then we will discuss and nominate consultants,\" SIIG\'s managing director Suleiman al-Mandeel said. SIIG currently owns 50% of Petrochem and produces around 1.3 million tonnes of petrochemical products.
\r\nSaudi Organometallic Chemicals Co (SOCC), a joint venture equally owned by Sabic affiliate, Saudi Specialty Chemical Co and Albemarle Netherlands, has signed a contract with Samsung Engineering to provide the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services at the group\'s aluminium alkyls manufacturing facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Set for completion in Q3 2012, the SOCC facility will initially manufacture 6,000 metric tonnes/yr of Tri Ethyl Aluminium, the key co-catalyst used in polyolefin production. This product is currently supplied to the region from Albemarle\'s facilities in Europe, Asia, and North America and will be supplied from the SOCC plant to regional customers upon plant start-up.