Gulf Construction Online

Saudi Focus

In Brief

01 December 2018

Oil-to-chemicals plant for Yanbu

Saudi Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) have announced the selection of Yanbu, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, as the site for the development of an integrated industrial complex to convert crude oil to chemicals (COTC).

The complex will utilise an economically viable, innovative configuration to convert crude oil to chemicals. This process is claimed to be unprecedented in the industry.

The COTC complex is expected to process 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil, which will produce approximately 9 million tons of chemicals and base oils annually and is expected to start operations in 2025. By 2030, the COTC complex is expected to have 1.5 per cent impact on the kingdom’s gross domestic product (GDP), with investments being shared equally by both companies.

$799m drainage project launched

Saudi government has started work on a comprehensive rainwater drainage project in Jeddah covering 30 critical and sensitive locations in the city, said a report.

The project, which is estimated to cost SR3 billion ($799 million), is being implemented in a number of phases, reported the Saudi Gazette.

Work has already started on Phase One of the Jeddah Rainwater Drainage project, said the report, citing the city’s mayor.

“With the project fully completed, Jeddah would be in a better position next year with regard to rainwater drainage,” remarked Saleh Al Turki.

Work starts on airport projects

Work has started on two modern airport projects at Al Jouf and Al Qurayat regions of Saudi Arabia aimed at accommodating the ever-increasing passenger traffic.

This comes in line with the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation’s (Gaca) vision to build modern airports system with advanced services.

Saudi King Salman laid the foundation stone for the airport projects during his visit to the northern region.

Once completed, these airports will handle a combined a capacity of 1.5 million passengers per annum. Al Jouf airport project would be built on the Unified Airports Model (B) that can accommodate one million passengers per annum, while the new Al Qurayat airport will be developed as per the Unified Airports Model Plan (A), which can accommodate half a million passengers annually.