MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco signed 10 agreements with South Korean firms to advance its downstream strategy and support the development of low-carbon energy solutions, while creating new financing options for the company, said Argaam.
The agreements include memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreements with Korean energy companies KEPCO, S-Oil, POSCO, Hyundai Oilbank, H2Korea and Lotte Chemical to explore potential collaboration in the supply, transportation, utilisation and certification of hydrogen and ammonia.
The companies also plan to study the feasibility of converting exported ammonia into hydrogen - a process known as ammonia back-cracking. This represents a first step towards a potential large-scale production facility for hydrogen and ammonia in Saudi Arabia, which would also include a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility.
Furthermore, Aramco signed an agreement with Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction and the Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Co (Dussur) to establish a casting and forging facility in Saudi Arabia. The facility could supply the Kingdom’s manufacturers with industrial and process equipment such as valves, pumps, compressors, wellheads, flanges, heat exchangers, and gas and wind turbines. The signings took place at the Saudi-Korean Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As MRC informed before, in June 2020, Aramco finalized its USD69 billion acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Middle East's biggest petrochemical maker. SABIC reported more than a fivefold year-on-year increase in its Q3 net profit to USD1.49 billion thanks to higher average sales prices.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
MRC