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SAUDI ARABIA - Divided Zone Mega-Venture.

Article Excerpt
Al-Khafji Joint Operations, a 50:50 JV of Kuwait Gulf Oil Co. and Saudi Aramco's Aramco Gulf Operations working in the Divided Zone (DZ), was on Oct. 12 to receive a proposal for an integrated mega-project from a group of investors led by Kuwait Finance House (KFH). This calls for a petrochemicals plant, together with a power and water desalination plant on an island, in the DZ to use flared associated gas from the area.

With the exception of the power/water island, the firms involved in this venture and the configurations are the same as for an integrated petrochemicals, power and water complex planned in Bahrain. The proposed facility will produce 315,000 t/y of ethylene dichloride (EDC), 167,000 t/y of caustic soda, and 30m gallons/day of desalinated water. The main difference to the Bahrain JV is the amount of power will be 200 MW, as opposed to 1,000 MW.

The firms involved are Shaw International of the US for the ethane cracker, Uhde of Germany for the EDC and caustic soda, Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI) of the US for the gas separation unit and Weir Int'l of the UK for the desalination plant. Rolls-Royce of the UK will build the power island. On the Bahrain project, Siemens of Germany is said to have replaced the General Electric (GE) of the US for the power element, after the quotation submitted by GE came in well over the client's budget. KFH is said to be looking for an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor for both projects.

A big number of private petrochemical and chemical factories have emerged in recent years as satellites for the major plants of the state-controlled Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC). The plants, producing basic petrochemicals, are JVs between SABIC and major international firms (see DT 15). SABIC ventures not mentioned in DT 15 include: National Industrial Gases Co., known as GAS and shared by SABIC and private Saudi interests, whose additional air separation plant at Yanbu' built by Linde of Germany went on stream in late 1999 to produce 30,000 normal cubic metres/hour of oxygen, about 50,000 ncm/h of nitrogen, 2,200 ncm/h of liquid oxygen and 3,200 ncm/h of liquid nitrogen; Saudi Iron & Steel Co. -...

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