Saudi Aramco chief urged the region's petrochemicals producers to add value

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- Khalid Al-Falih, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, today called for GCC chemicals producers to double the business-as-usual estimate of US$80 billion per year for the next decade to $150 billion to $200 billion a year. ⌠By 2020, the region's petrochemical and chemical enterprises should increase their sales by a factor of five, Al-Falih said.

In his speech, Al-Falih also noted that refinery-petrochemical integration has only started to emerge in the region, which has been built largely on the competitive advantage derived from gas-based feedstocks.

Comparing the Gulf's petrochemical sector to those in other parts of the world, Al-Falih said the Gulf region's enterprises need to focus on product diversity and downstream value addition. This should go to the extent of supporting industries such as automotives, construction, electronics, textiles, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and others that could benefit from further diversification.

As well as helping to diversify economies and boosting GDP growth, product value addition creates employment opportunities, he said.

Al-Falih called on the Gulf's petrochemical industry to invest more in R&D and innovation, human resource development and to nurture and cultivate a dynamic environment that would bring about commercial success and promote entrepreneurship.

⌠The next 10 years will be a golden age for our region in terms of economic conditions and commercial opportunities, but we also face many structural hurdles and challenges. We must therefore seize this moment before it passes, Al-Falih said.

MRC

(PRW) -- Rompetrol Petrochemicals, a subsidiary of the Romanian oil producer Rompetrol Group, has completed a major project to integrate its polymer operations into an automated command and control centre.

The new centre integrates the firm's three polymer production plants making polypropylene, low density and high density polyethylene, as well as those related to pyrolysis - the steam boilers and the propane-propylene separation station, it stated.

An investment of $0.5m went into the project which follows other major spending by Rompetrol totalling $44.5m in 2006 - 2007 involving restarting and modernising the firm's LDPE and HDPE units.

Rompetrol's oil refining operations were already integrated by central control through a $33m investment scheme completed in 2004.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Global monoethylene glycol (MEG) markets are likely to remain robust in 2011, supported by strong demand from China and a lack of new capacity additions, a top executive from MEGlobal said late on Tuesday.

This year has been a surprise for producers of MEG, a commonly used intermediate in the production of polyester fibres that go into clothes, as a widely expected industry downturn did not materialise. Prices and margins recovered throughout the year, supported by the strength in the polyester industry - especially in China.

Global MEG demand was expected to rise by around 10% to 21m tonnes by the end of this year, driven mainly by Chinese demand, which was expected to hit 9m tonnes, up from around 7m tonnes last year.

Besides demand, supply-side factors also helped producers in 2010 as operating problems constrained availability.

MRC

(ICIS) -- The recent rise in countries' antidumping measures are likely to impede the growth and trade flows of petrochemicals from the Middle East, senior industry officials said on Wednesday.

While the Middle East is projected to supply up to 40% of Asia's expected demand for petrochemicals in the medium term, protectionist measures could curb this outflow, said Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid al-Qasimi, the United Arab Emirates' minister of foreign trade. She was speaking at the fifth annual Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) forum in Dubai.

India recently put tariffs on polypropylene (PP) shipments from Saudi Arabia, Oman and Singapore. The increase in antidumping measures has grown in tandem with the recovery in the global economy, as economies with large export deficits create an environment conducive to protectionist measures, said SABIC CEO Mohamed al-Mady.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Saudi Aramco is in talks with prospective customers to sell paraxylene and benzene cargoes from its 400,000 bpd refinery in Jubail Industrial City in late 2013 or early 2014, as per Platts.

Saudi Aramco and Total are building a refinery in Jubail Industrial City 2 to produce gasoline, low-sulfur diesel and naphtha. The project will also process heavy crude to produce 700,000 tpa paraxylene, 140,000 tpa benzene and 200,000 tpa polymer grade propylene.

Aramco and Total will each have a claim over 50% of the output. Saudi Aramco is looking to sell 25,000-100,000 tons of cargoes of paraxylene and benzene under long-term contracts.

MRC