International Petroleum Refining Projects Planned to Kick-Off in 2003 Increases by 47 Percent over 2002

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Industrialinfo.com has reported 98 individual projects totaling over $6.5 billion in capital spending planned to begin construction during 2003, at international petroleum refineries. This is an increase of 47 percent over last year. The majority of these projects are major unit additions such as hyrdotreaters, reformers, SRU's, and cogeneration units. The remaining projects generally represent expansions of distillation units, cokers, and FCCU's.

Although there is a dramatic increase in the number of projects identified by Industrialinfo.com, as part of the International Projects Database, the average project Total Investment Value (TIV) decreased slightly from $79 million in 2002 to $67 million in 2003. "The international markets are faced with a lot of the same pressures domestic producers are working to comply with such as strict clean fuels regulations and low sulfur fuel mandates plus a push to increase efficiencies with future crude prices certain to increase," commented Chris Paschall, Petroleum Refining Group Manager.

Click the image to the right to view an index of the top three projects planned for construction in 2003 plus a statistical overview of planned projects by country for 2003 and 2004.

"Looking forward to 2004, we have already reported 74 capital projects planned to kick-off next year totaling just over $5 Billion in total spending with an average TIV of $69 million," Mr. Paschall added. In 2004, Croatia is the leading country with seven projects totaling $730 million in planned refinery investment. The United Arab Emirates is following closely with ten projects totaling an estimated $720 million.

The country leading the list of planned projects for 2003 is Russia with twelve projects with an estimated TIV of $1.1 billion. Jordan follows as a distant second place with 8 projects and $635 million in total spending.