Project Profile
Location: Eastern Province, Ras Tanura
Value: US$8 billion
Operation Start: 1945
Capacity: 550,000 bpd
Ras Tanura is the oldest refinery on the Persian Gulf coast, located near the industrial port city Jubail in Saudi Arabia. It has a crude distillation capacity of 550,000 barrels per day (bpd). It is owned and operated by the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. The majority of the products produced by the refinery are supplied to Dhahran bulk plant for domestic use, and the remaining are exported. The refinery began operations in September 1945 with an initial production capacity of over 60,000bpd. It has since then undergone a number of expansions, which added new equipment such as fluid hydroformer for high-octane gasoline production (commissioned in 1955), a diesel desulphurisation unit (commissioned in 1957), a special products blending facility, and a refrigerated liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plant.
The major facilities at the refinery complex include a 325,000bpd crude distillation unit, a 225,000bpd gas condensate distillation unit and 50,000bpd hydrocracker. In addition it has 270,000bpd catalytic reforming equipment. It also includes a visbreaker and a natural gas liquids (NGL) industrial unit. The NGL fractionation plant was added with a capacity of 130,000bpd in 1978. A modernisation project was completed at the refinery in 1984. The refinery was also upgraded by adding diglycol amine (DGA) regeneration plant and sour water stripper in 1999.
The Ras Tanura refinery underwent a major expansion worth US$8 billion between 2007 and 2012. The expansion included addition of a crude distillation unit with a capacity of 400 million barrels of oil per day (mbod), a vacuum distillation unit with 120mbod, a continuous catalyst regenerator with a capacity of 100mobd, and a 120mbod visbreaker crude unit. The expansion also added other units to the refinery, such as a 90mbod diesel hydrotreater, an 820gpm amine regeneration unit, a 200tpd sulphur recovery unit, and a sour water stripper with a capacity of 225gpm. In addition, the project included addition of related utilities, controls, interconnections to the existing facilities, flares, and tankage at the refinery.
Jacobs Engineering Group was awarded with a contact to provide FEED services for both inside and outside battery limits in August 2011. The scope of the contract also included providing modifications to the refinery in order to comply with the environmental regulations in future.
WorleyParsons was awarded with a contract to provide project management and FEED services for the expansion of the refinery between 2007 and 2012. The scope of the contract included providing detailed design support, detailed design package preparation and construction management services for the refinery expansion.
Operator:
Saudi Aramco
Contractors:
Jacobs Engineering Group: FEED (August 2011)
WorleyParsons: FEED and PMC (Between 2007-2012)
Tecnicas Reunidas: Turnkey contractor (December 2016)
Sub-contractors:
Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB&I): Engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction of nine flat bottom tanks (August 2017)