September 3, 2012:

European and Korean companies have bid for a project to double the capacity of an oil lubricants refinery in Yanbu controlled by state oil giant Saudi Aramco, industry sources said on Monday. South Korea's Samsung Engineering and Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Italy's Saipem and Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas bid on Sept. 1 for the project, which is being developed by the Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Co (Luberef). The firm, 70 percent-owned by Saudi Aramco and 30 percent by Saudi Jadwa Industrial Investment, produces around 550,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of oil lubricants at its two refineries on the kingdom's Red Sea coast at Jeddah and Yanbu. The capacity of the Yanbu refinery will double once the project is completed in 2015. It now has a capacity of 280,000 tpy of oil lubricants, and the expansion will produce other types of base oil, new to the Gulf region, Luberef has said. An executive at the firm said in 2010 the cost of the project was expected to be around $1 billion.

By Reuters