SAMAREC OUTLINES $4 BILLION UPGRADING PLANS

The first phase of Saudi Arabian Marketing and Refining and Co.'s (Samarec) $4 billion, three stage program to upgrade its refining capacity will make substantial volumes of reformulated gasoline available for export.

The state owned company disclosed details about its 10 year investment program earlier this month after letting contract in London to Foster Wheeler USA as program management contractor.

PROGRAM PHASE

The first phase covering the three wholly owned refineries at Yanbu (170,000 b/d), Riyadh (120,000 b/d), and Jeddah (95,000 b/d) will cost $2 billion and come on stream in late 1995 to early 1996.

The second phase will involve modernization and upgrading Saudi Aramco's 530,000 b/d Ras Tanura refinery and 325,000 b/d Rabigh unit, a joint venture of Samarec and the Greek company Petrola.

In the third phase modernization and upgrading is proposed for the Petromin/Royal Dutch/Shell Group unit at Jubail and the Petromin/Mobil Oil Corp. plant at Yanbu. Each has a capacity of 300,000 b/d. Additional upgrading at Ras Tanura is included in this phase.

PROGRAM GOALS

Samarec said the thrust of the program is to upgrade the bottom of the barrel, make unleaded gasoline, and improve product quality to meet export market requirements.

Yanbu's crude unit will be debottlenecked on a fast track basis to boost capacity to 240,000 b/d, with all the unit's conversion capacity commensurate with the increased distillation capacity.

In the first phase, plans call for boosting octane in unleaded gasoline at the three wholly owned refineries, with significant quantities of reformulated gasoline available for export from Yanbu.

Vacuum gas oil conversion capacity will be installed at Yanbu with ancillary gasoline producing facilities including CCR reforming, isomerization, alkylation, and a methyl tertiary butyl ether unit.

In addition to visbreaking barrel bottoms, Samarec plans to install distillate desulfurization facilities at the three wholly owned refineries to lower the system's overall diesel sulfur content to 0.3 wt % from 1 wt %.

GASOLINE OUTPUT TO JUMP

As a result of the shift to value-added products in the first phase, overall gasoline output is expected to increase to 208,000 b/d from the current level of 93,000 b/d.

"Significantly, the post phase one gasoline output will be unleaded with substantial quantities being reformulated gasoline," Samarec said. Jet fuel and diesel output also will increase, with diesel production marked by a lower sulfur pool average specification of 0.3 wt %. Production of fuel oils in the post phase one period will drop to 90,000 b/d from 126,000 b/d.

Samarec said upgrades planned the rest of the decade in the second and third phases also will be geared to producing higher quality products at the expense of residual fuel oils.

In the first phase, engineering studies are under way, and Foster Wheeler will undertake front end engineering and prepare lump sum turnkey bid packages for the detailed engineering, procurement, and construction at each of the three wholly owned refineries.

Foster Wheeler will provide overall management of turnkey contractors from contract award to unit commissioning,

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