Tuesday, 25 August 2009 at 10:12, Reuters, Saudi Arabia
State oil firm Saudi Aramco has started operations at the expanded Yanbu gas plant, two sources working on the project said on Monday.
"The plant is ready and was mechanically completed by the end of February," one source from Egypt's Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (ENPPI) told Reuters.
Aramco is boosting capacity at the plant by 50 per cent to handle increased volumes of petrochemical feedstock ethane and light oil that form when gas is extracted, called natural gas liquids (NGLs).
The expansion of Yanbu will add 195,000 barrels per day of additional capacity to the plant, taking capacity there to 585,000 bpd, Aramco said in a statement in 2006 when it signed the contract with ENPPI.
The expansion is "to meet increasing demand for ethane as a petrochemical feedstock, specifically at the Yanbu and Rabigh petrochemical complexes", Aramco showed in its annual review for 2008. Aramco said in the review the project would be on stream mid 2009.
Aramco was not immediately available for comment.
"The performance test (for the plant) took place mid June," another source from the company said.
The world's top oil exporter is experiencing annual gas demand growth of 7 per cent per year as oil revenues fuel economic expansion.
The plant, on the Red Sea coast, is close to petrochemical complexes such as Yansab, Yanpet and PetroRabigh.
Two other expanded gas plants at Juaymah and Hawiyah are scheduled to come on stream in September, sources working on the projects said last month.
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