Jubail, Yanbu projects to have $12.09 billion capital outlay

He said that an oil refinery will be established in Jubail-II by Saudi Aramco in association with French oil company Total SA at a cost of $6.4 billion (SR24 billion) on an area covering five million square metres. The refinery will have a daily capacity of 400,000 barrels and will create 1,000 jobs. Each company will have a 35 per cent stake in the refinery.

Thirty per cent of the firm's shares will be offered to the public. The Jubail refinery will manufacture basic petrochemical products, such as benzene, and propylene. Prince Saud said the second location in Jubail-II will go to Sipchem Olefins, one of the major petrochemical projects with an investment of US$5.33b (SR20 billion). He added that the plant would supply 20 petrochemical products and create 1,880 new jobs. The project includes 1.2 million tonnes per year of ethane/propane cracker, a bimodal HDPE, PP, vinyl acetate and polyacrylonitrile.

The third project, a petrochemical plant, will be established in Yanbu-II at a cost of $360 million (SR1.35 billion). It will cover 200,000 square metres of land in the new industrial city on the Red Sea coast. He said the Royal Commission was able to complete infrastructure facilities at the two giant industrial cities within a short span of nine months. "There is growing demand for space at the two cities from industrialists," he said. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz laid the foundation stone for Jubail-II, which is expected to draw in investments worth $59.73b (SR224b) and create some 55,000 new jobs. The new industrial city is situated about three kilometres to the west of Jubail-I. The Royal Commission will provide the entire infrastructure, including roads, utilities, gas, electricity, sea water cooling, potable water, waste water treatment, feed-stock and a product pipeline corridor to King Fahd Industrial Port.

Jubail-II is aimed at capitalising on the country's abundant hydrocarbon resources, to optimise economic and social benefits for the Kingdom and to further strengthen an already globally competitive petrochemical industry. Supporting Saudi Arabia's national development strategy, the new development is projected to double the size of the Jubail Industrial City by 6,200 hectares.

"Throughout the past three decades, the two cities of Jubail and Yanbu have not only succeeded in building and maintaining a modern infrastructure but more importantly, have gained a worldwide reputation for developing and implementing environmental and safety standards, that have become a global benchmark for industrial estates," said Abdul Wahab Al-Saadoun, head of SAGIA's energy sector.