Aramco pushes crude-to-chemicals frontiers
A trio of major project announcements signal the Saudi heavyweight’s renewed focus on maximising petchems yield
A brief post on the local Tadawul stock exchange by Saudi Aramco’s petrochemicals subsidiary Sabic in late November revealed the resurrection of potentially one of the most-significant projects in either firm’s history: the development of a huge crude-oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex on the Kingdom’s east coast. Just a week earlier, the parent company’s South Korean joint venture, S-Oil, announced FID on a similar scheme first formally mooted five years ago—again designed to maximise the chemical yield from each barrel of oil. And plans for a more traditional refinery/petchems integration in Poland served to hammer home the message of a renewed Aramco push further downstream. The firm’s state

Also in this section
12 February 2025
The oilfield expansion provides a fresh influx of revenue but will strain its cooperation with OPEC+ and fails to mask deeper issues with the economy and investors
11 February 2025
Improving compliance among the group and wider group is offset by production increases in outliers Libya, Venezuela and Iran
10 February 2025
The country wants to kickstart its upstream but first needs to persuade investors to foot the bill
10 February 2025
The February 2025 issue of Petroleum Economist is out now!