Aramco invites firms to handle construction of Jizan refinery

State oil giant Saudi Aramco is looking for firms to manage the construction of the Jizan refinery, industry sources said yesterday.

Engineering firms will have to submit their prequalification documents, which also include the front-end engineering and design (Feed) and project management services (PMS) by June 12, sources said.

The refinery, with a planned capacity of 250,000-400,000 bpd is among new plants Saudi Arabia is planning to build as it looks to boost domestic refining capacity. "Aramco is still evaluating options to decide on the capacity of the refinery," said an industry source.

In January, Saudi Arabia said Aramco would build the refinery at Jizan.

The kingdom had hoped the refinery would be built and owned entirely by the private sector, a first in the world's top exporter.

The refinery is far from Saudi Arabia's producing fields and is part of a wider development plan for the impoverished southern region.

In another development, industry sources said that Aramco has extended for the fourth time the date to submit bids to build a solids handling unit at its 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) Yanbu refinery.

The extension was made at the request of bidders, said one source who declined to be identified. The deadline for bids for the unit, which will produce 6,300 metric tonnes per day of coke and 1,260 metric tonnes of sulphur, is now July 6, said the sources. Italy's Saipem, Britain's Petrofac and South Korea's Daelim Industrial Company are among companies bidding for the solids handling unit package.

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