Utility Failure Halts Petro Rabigh's Refinery Operations

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources India (Delhi, India)--Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company (SAU:2380) (Petro Rabigh) (Rabigh, Saudi Arabia) has put its 400,000-barrels-per-day (BBL/d) Rabigh Refinery in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on emergency shutdown for 20 days, following a sudden cut-off of power and steam supplies to the plant on December 29, 2012. The company sources have attributed the unscheduled shutdown to an outage in the associated power plant owned by Rabigh Arabian Water and Electricity Company (RAWEC).

The major units of the refinery to be shut down include a 400,000-BBL/d crude unit; a 92,000-BBL/d High Olefin Fluid Catalytic Cracker (HOFCC); a 120,000-BBL/d Vacuum Gas Oil Hydrotreater (VGO HT); and a 47,000-BBL/d Diesel Hydro-desufurization unit (DHDS). Petro Rabigh last shut its entire refinery in April 2011 for about 60 days to conduct a planned maintenance on its refinery units.

Petro Rabigh sources have said that the maintenance activities already have been initiated to restore supplies and resume refinery operations by January 18, 2013. During the shutdown, necessary maintenance work, as well as reliability checks, would be taken up.

The Rabigh refinery was commissioned in 1989, with an initial capacity of 325,000 BBL/d. A debottlenecking exercise was performed in 1998, which resulted in an increase in crude processing capacity to 400,000 BBL/d, making the refinery the largest single-train crude distillation unit in the world.

Petro Rabigh is a 50:50 joint venture between Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) and Sumitomo Chemical Limited (TYO:4005) (Tokyo, Japan). Valued at about $10 billion, the complex comprises 23 units producing more than 18.4 million tons per annum of petroleum-based products and 2.4 million tons per annum of ethylene- and propylene-based derivatives.

In January 2008, the company held its initial public offering and issued a 25% stake to the public. Presently, Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical each hold a 37.5% share in Petro Rabigh.

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