Saudi Aramco has opened a new refined oil products storage facility in central Saudi Arabia, to allow for more flexibility in scheduling refinery maintenance and minimizing supply disruptions, the state news agency SPA said. The 650,000 barrel underground facility in Qassim is linked to a distribution terminal with a 46-mile-long (74-km) oil pipeline. It is the last of five similar storage facilities that were opened in Jeddah, Abha, Madinah and the capital Riyadh, according to SPA. “(The facilities) have allowed greater flexibility in the scheduling of maintenance works at refineries and in avoiding any shortage in supplying consumers,” Abdul Aziz Al-Khayyal, Aramco's senior vice-president for industrial relations, said in a statement. The facilities would also cut operating costs and reduce reliance on land transport to move petroleum products within the sprawling country, he added Saudi non-oil exports fall 18 percent in January. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's non-oil exports fell 18 percent in January compared to the same month a year ago, the Kingdom's Economy and Planning Ministry said Monday. Non-oil exports slipped to SR7.87 billion, or about $2.1 billion, in January from SR9.61 billion in January 2008, the ministry said. Earlier this month, the head of the Saudi central bank said the rate of growth in the country's non-oil exports plunged by 50 percent in 2008. The brunt of those exports are petrochemical products and plastics.
