Samref ... success story

Involved in Saudi Arabia since 1927 - when it started marketing Mobilgas and Mobiloil in the Kingdom - ExxonMobil has become an active partner in Saudi Aramco.

ExxonMobil is a major investor in Saudi Arabia. It is represented through Mobil Saudi Arabia Inc, which has branch offices in Riyadh, Jeddah and Yanbu.

ExxonMobil's largest ventures in the Kingdom are the Saudi Aramco Mobil Yanbu Refinery Company Ltd (Samref), in which ExxonMobil owns a 50 per cent interest with Saudi Aramco, and the Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Company (Yanpet), in which Mobil owns a 50 per cent interest with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic).

Samref is a 365,000 barrels per day (bpd) export refinery which manufactures a full range of high quality fuels - gasoline, gas oil, fuel oil, LPG etc. During its nearly 18 years of operation, Samref has achieved an exemplary safety record.

Yanpet, like Samref, is another success in Saudi Arabia's national development plan. It produces ethylene using ethane delivered through Saudi Aramco's East-West NGL pipeline. Yanpet consumes all its ethylene in the production of polyethylene and ethylene glycol. Since start-up, Yanpet's capacity has been increased significantly with new plants, improved operating performance and the completion of a major debottleneck in mid-1989.

A $2.5 billion complex was added to use ethane, propane and natural gas to produce ethylene, polyethylene, ethylene glycol, polypropylene and pyrolysis gasoline. Yanpet is now one of the largest petrochemical complexes in the world.

Both Samref and Yanpet are located in Yanbu Industrial City, and export products around the world. Both plants are world leaders in terms of their size, sophisticated technologies and upgrading capabilities.

ExxonMobil has also been at the forefront in helping Saudi Arabia achieve its goal of developing its manpower to participate in all aspects of its new industrial projects.

Comprehensive programmes established by ExxonMobil have served to meet the training needs of both professional and non-professional Saudi employees in its various joint venture projects.

Thus, some 3,000 Saudis are employed in the workforce of ExxonMobil affiliates and ExxonMobil-related projects in the Kingdom.

ExxonMobil has also been able to contribute its worldwide engineering expertise and know-how to the success of all the joint ventures. In this connection, the company was responsible for the planning and construction phases of the East-West crude pipeline - the trans-Kingdom pipeline which delivers crude oil from the East coast to the West coast for consumption in the Kingdom and export from Yanbu.

ExxonMobil also brings its world-renowned expertise and technical excellence to several lubricant ventures covering all phases of the industry's business - base stock production, lube oil blending and marketing of finished lubricants and greases.

ExxonMobil holds a 30 per cent interest in Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Company (Luberef). Luberef operates two lubricant basestock refineries - one in Jeddah and a second lubricant basestock refinery in Yanbu. Luberef is the only manufacturer of lube oil base stocks in the Kingdom.

ExxonMobil also owns a 29 per cent interest in Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company (Petrolube), a company with blending plants in Jeddah and Riyadh which markets its finished lubricants and greases under the Petromin brand throughout the Kingdom and for export.

Both these joint ventures are undertaken with Saudi Aramco as a partner.

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