MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco Products Trading Co., the fuel marketing unit of Saudi Arabia’s state oil producer, started selling products of an affiliated petrochemicals maker, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Aramco Trading will sell products including polypropylene and polyethylene made by Rabigh Refining & Petrochemicals Co., according to a statement on the state oil company’s website. The company began physical deliveries of the first chemical products today, it said.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest oil exporter, owns all of the marketing unit and 37.5% of the refinery, known as Petro Rabigh. Sumitomo Chemical holds an equal share in Petro Rabigh, with the remainder traded on the stock market.
The partners will sell equal amounts of Petro Rabigh’s products, according to a Petro Rabigh statement.
Persian Gulf oil producers such as Saudi Arabia are boosting chemical output to diversify their economies away from reliance on crude sales for revenue by selling finished products like transport fuels and plastics.
As MRC reported previously, Petro Rabigh had signed an agreement with Tasnee and Saudi Advanced Industries (SAIC) for the supply of propylene oxide to the joint venture for the production of polyether polyol. The plant is located in Rabiga, in the west of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea.
Aramco and Sumitomo plan to expand the Petro Rabigh plant, and Aramco is building additional chemical capacity at Jubail on the Gulf. PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has an annual output capacity of 18 million tonsne of refined products and 2.4 million tonnes of petrochemicals.
MRC