Petro Rabigh expects to completely resume production at its petrochemical complex by mid-August, just in time for the peak polymer demand season in the Middle East, industry sources said Monday. The company announced Sunday that it restarted its high olefins fluid catalytic cracker (HOFCC) on July 31 after a prolonged maintenance, with its Rabigh petrochemical complex set to achieve full operational capacity by Aug. 15. The whole petrochemical complex was taken off line on April 21 for maintenance. “It is a good news that Petro Rabigh is back in the market, because the demand in the Middle East for polymers will improve in September after the Ramadan is over as the seasonal peak will kick off, such as in the carpet industry,” a trader said. “By the time Petro Rabigh has cargoes to dispatch that will be for September shipments,” said another polymer trader. The Rabigh complex includes a 400,000 bbl/day refinery, a 700,000 ton/year polypropylene (PP) plant; a 600,000 ton/year linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) unit; a 300,000 ton/year high density PE (HDPE) plant, 200,000 ton/year propylene oxide (PO) facility and a 600,000 ton/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant. Petro Rabigh is a joint venture between oil and gas firm Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical. Petro Rabigh now has an annual output of 18 million tons of refined products and 2.4 million tons of petrochemicals. The Rabigh II project is due to be completed in the first quarter of 2015, sources said. As part of the expansion, estimated to cost between $6 billion and $8 billion, partners would look to increase the capacity of the existing ethane cracker to take in an additional 30 million cubic feet per day of feedstock ethane. The venture would build a number of other petrochemicals plants including an aromatics complex using around 3 million tonnes per year of naphtha as feedstock. Rabigh II and the new complex with Dow are set to almost double Aramco's chemicals manufacturing capacity and would add a number of products new in the Middle East. Petro Rabigh swung to a net loss of SR402.3 million ($107.3 million) in second quarter because of heavy production losses as its whole petrochemical complex was shut for maintenance.
