The polycarbonate facility in Cartegena is expected to be fully operational by 2024, powered by a 100MW PV solar plant.

SABIC has signed a deal with Spanish utility company Iberdrola who will invest €70 million to install 263,000 panels for the project.

Reportedly, it will be the largest industrial renewable power plant in Europe.

The renewable energy powered chemical plant project by SABIC is in line with the company’s plan to have 4 gigawatts (GW) of either wind or solar energy installed for its sites globally by 2025, rising to 12GW by 2030.

Saudi Arabia-based oil giant Aramco recently acquired a 70 percent stake in SABIC in a deal worth $69.1 billion.

According to the deal, Aramco acquired 2.1 billion of SABIC’s shares on the Saudi stock exchange, the Tadawul.

A deal was agreed with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) last year. Reportedly, the payment for SABIC will be funded in part by four bonds issued by Aramco to the PIF.

“The deal completion is on-track with expectations to be finalised before the end of the second quarter,” Aramco told Reuters in a statement when asked about the transactions.

In the month of May, Saudi Aramco sought a review of the buying price for SABIC after its value dropped by 40 percent due to a slump in oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The post SABIC to develop world’s first renewable energy powered chemical plant appeared first on International Finance.

Aramco, which is one of the largest oil producing company, will expand its downstream business globally. It pumps around 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude, of which it exports about 6 million bpd.

Aramco said that its downstream model will be divided into four units which are fuels including refining, trading, retail and lubes; chemicals; power; and pipelines, distribution, and terminals.

In a statement, the oil producer said, “This reorganisation is designed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of Aramco’s existing downstream assets, but does not represent a fundamental change in the overall business structure.”

Aramco, which is the world’s most profitable company, is also planning to increase its refining capacity in Saudi Arabia from around 5 million bpd to 8 to 10 million bpd, according to media reports.

Last month, Aramco started laying off employees in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has severely impacted the demand for oil.

Reportedly, around 500 employees lost their jobs in Aramco, most of them were non-Saudis. Aramco has around 70,000 employees.

Last month, Saudi Aramco completed the purchase of its 70 percent stake in the kingdom’s petrochemical giant Sabic from the Saudi Public Investment Fund in a deal worth $69.1 billion. Reportedly, it is one of the largest ever deals in the global chemicals industry.

The acquisition is in line with Aramco’s decision to expand its downstream, or refining and marketing, business globally.

The post Aramco to reorganise downstream business to support its global growth appeared first on International Finance.

According to the deal, Aramco has acquired 2.1 billion of SABIC’s shares on the Saudi stock exchange, the Tadawul.

A deal was agreed with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) last year. Reportedly, the payment for SABIC will be funded in part by four bonds issued by Aramco to the PIF.

“The deal completion is on-track with expectations to be finalised before the end of the second quarter,” Aramco told Reuters in a statement when asked about the transactions. “We will make a completion announcement in due course.”

In the month of May, Saudi Aramco sought a review of the buying price for SABIC after its value dropped by 40 percent due to a slump in oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic.

SABIC, which is the world’s fourth-biggest petrochemical company, suffered a second consecutive quarterly loss. The company said it will suspend all capital expenditures barring those for late-stage projects and necessary operations.

Depleting oil prices, lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and a global economic slowdown will only further impact SABIC’s profit and loss statement.

Earlier this year, the media reported that SABIC has established a joint venture company to build one of the world’s biggest utility-scale battery factories. SABIC unit Nusaned Investment has teamed up with SCHMID Group to develop the vanadium redox flow batteries. The Riwaq Industrial Development Company is also expected to join the joint venture.

The post Aramco acquires 70% stake in SABIC for $69.1 bn appeared first on International Finance.

Last year, Aramco agreed to buy a 70 percent stake in SABIC from the Public Investment Fund (PIF). The deal was agreed at $32.86 per SABIC share, in March 2019.

Currently, SABIC is valued at around $56.5 billion, which means Aramco had to pay around $40 billion for its 70 stake in the company. However, as per the earlier agreement, Aramco has to pay about $75 billion in dividends to the Saudi government after its initial public offering last year.

The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. SABIC CEO Yousef Al Benyan revealed the same and he further stressed that he did not see anything that changes this timeline.

SABIC, which is the world’s fourth-biggest petrochemicals company, suffered a second consecutive quarterly loss. The company said it will suspend all capital expenditures barring those for late-stage projects and necessary operations.

Depleting oil prices, lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and a global economic slowdown will only further impact SABIC’s profit and loss statement.

Earlier this month, the media reported that SABIC has established a joint venture company to build one of the world’s biggest utility-scale battery factories. SABIC unit Nusaned Investment has teamed up with SCHMID Group to develop the vanadium redox flow batteries. The Riwaq Industrial Development Company is also expected to join the joint venture.

The post Aramco to review SABIC’s price after 40% drop in its value appeared first on International Finance.

The announcement came right after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved the project’s air quality permit. According to Houston Business Journal, the project now has the final environmental regulatory approval to construct a 1.8 million metric tonne ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene units and a monoethylene glycol unit.

Reports said that the project will cost approximately $10 billion.

Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil said that the project is one of the many ‘key projects’ that contribute to ExxonMobil’s ‘earnings potential’. “Building the world’s largest steam cracker, with state-of-the-art technology, on the doorstep of rapidly growing Permian production gives this project significant scale and feedstock advantages,” he added.

In the manufacturing process, the plant will convert natural gas to ethylene to manufacture plastic bottles, containers and polyester clothing.

With the project construction, 6,000 new jobs will be created. Impact DataSource conducted a preliminary study which estimated that the project will generate more than $22 billion in economic output around that time.

Once the facility is up and running, more than 600 permanent jobs will be created with an average of $90,000 per year. And during the first six years of the operation will generate economic benefits of $50 billion as per Impact DataSource estimates.

ExxonMobil and SABIC have a strong presence in Houston.

The post ExxonMobil, SABIC plan to build world’s largest ethane steam cracker appeared first on International Finance.

The COTC complex is expected to process 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil, which will produce approximately 9 million tons of chemicals and base oils annually and is expected to start operations in 2025.

Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser said, “This project converges the commercial and strategic interests of both Saudi Aramco and SABIC, while reinforcing Saudi Aramco’s efforts to optimize the investment of our petroleum resources. COTC will also help expand our downstream portfolio, reducing our focus on the transportation sector and securing new and promising commercial opportunities.”

SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO Yousef Abdullah Al-Benyan said: “This venture will contribute to the realization of one of the major aspirations of Saudi Vision 2030, namely achieving economic prosperity by boosting our investment capacity, diversifying the economy and creating jobs for Saudi nationals. It will help strengthen our economic growth and attract world-class quality investments thanks to our unique and strategic geographic location.”

Al-Benyan added: “Today is a historic day, marking the complementary nature of the relationship between SABIC and Saudi Aramco because it is the first time the two largest economic entities in Saudi Arabia jointly enter into a strategic partnership to achieve a pioneering and innovative new technology. Once completed, this project will not only be the largest crude oil to chemicals complex in the world, it will also set a new competitive threshold thanks to the project’s mass scale and the benefits derived from our joint collaboration. The project will, therefore, help achieve the respective growth ambitions of Sabic and Saudi Aramco and further establishes the Kingdom as one of the pioneers in the petrochemicals industry.”

This announcement marks a historic alliance between the two, in addition to solidifying the Kingdom’s position as a global leader in chemicals by substantially increasing production and further maximizing value across the entire hydrocarbons chain through integration. The COTC complex will be constructed based on an innovative configuration that achieves crude oil to chemicals conversion that is unprecedented in the industry.

This MoU follows the Heads of Agreement (HoA) signed in June 2016 between the two companies, which governed the feasibility study for the development of a fully integrated petrochemicals complex in the Kingdom. A Saudi team developed innovative COTC configurations derived from best-in-class refining and chemical technologies.

The complex is expected to create an estimated 30,000 direct and indirect jobs, further stimulating the Kingdom’s economic diversification. By 2030 the COTC complex is expected to have 1.5% impact on the Kingdom’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with investments being shared equally by both companies.

Consistent with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic transformation program, this project will support the creation of a world-leading downstream sector in Saudi Arabia, built on four key drivers: maximizing value from the Kingdom’s crude oil production via integration across the hydrocarbon chain; enabling the creation of conversion industries to produce semi-finished and finished goods to help diversify the economy; developing advanced technologies and innovation; and enabling sustainable development in alignment with the Kingdom’s National Transformation Program.

The post Saudi Aramco and SABIC sign MOU to develop innovative crude oil to chemicals complex appeared first on International Finance.