Saudi Aramco, Total award EPC contract for Jubail refinery's paraxylene plant; startup scheduled for 2013

03-Jul-09

Saudi Aramco and Total have awarded the main contract for the construction of a new world-scale paraxylene plant at their future Jubail refinery in Saudi Arabia. The partners have chosen Samsung Engineering for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract. The new plant, scheduled to come on stream in 2013, will have a capacity of 700,000 tpa of paraxylene. The main applications of paraxylene are polyester and food packaging (PET* bottles), two buoyant markets in Asia. Total and Saudi Aramco are in charge of marketing the paraxylene which, together with 200,000 tpa of propylene and 150,000 tpa of benzene, will create new opportunities for petrochemical developments in the Jubail area and for the export market. This project is part of the agreement signed by Saudi Aramco and Total in 2008 for the construction and operation of a refinery in Jubail. Recently, the project took a major step by the awarding of the EPC contracts for thirteen different process packages of the joint-venture.