Saudi Aramco to develop Jizan Port and Power plant
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In order to ensure the development of the $7 billion Jizan refinery in the south of Saudi Arabia and its commercial operations expected to start in 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has decided to concentrate in the hands of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, the development of the essential infrastructures for the refinery operations such as the Port and the Power plant.
Because of its remote location from the crude oil producing areas, the Jizan refinery will need to be supplied in feedstock by tankers while the refined hydrocarbon products will be also exported by vessel to the global market.
Thus, the Port of Jizan must be developed on time to supply the 400,000 barrels per day (b/d) refinery.
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In the same way, this refinery will require 500 MW of electrical power that shall be connected and switched on before the refinery starts its operation.
Overall the Jizan Power Plant should have a capacity of 2,400 MW in order to supply the whole Jizan Economic City (JEC) project.
In addition, Saudi Aramco decided to combine the electrical power generation together with the crude oil gasification process that should provide feeders for the refinery.
Beyond the electrical power supply, the processes of the refinery and the power plant are closely connected through the gasification process.
Therefore, Saudi Aramco must develop the Port, the Power plant and the refinery in Jizan as one project with several units.
From the front end engineering and design (FEED) performed by KBR, the refinery includes 11 packages out of which 8 have been awarded for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phase by Saudi Aramco since November 2012:
- Hydrocracker and diesel hydrotreater packages to Tecnicas Reunidas
- Crude distillation and vacuum unit to SK Engineering
- Naphtha and aromatics (benzene and paraxylene) units to JGC Corporation
- Two tank farms packages to Petrofac Saudi Arabia
- Sour water stripper unit and amine regeneration unit to Hyundai Arabia
- Offsites and utilities packages to Hitachi Plant Corporation
- Marine terminal to Hanwha Engineering and Construction
- Site preparation to Ali Al-Ajmi Group
Saudi Aramco calls for bid Jizan Gasification package
In the same way, the Power plant should require $4 billion capital expenditure and is designed around five EPC packages:
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- Gasification plant
- Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP)
- Air Separation with hydrogen and oxygen production units
- Sulfur recovery
- Offsites and utilities
Among these packages, the most sensitive is the gasification plant as to condition the operations and performances of the combined cycle power plant and the refinery.
For this gasification plant, Saudi Aramco selected the Shell Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology.
This process combines hydrogen with crude oil, including heavy crude oil, to produce synthesis gas (syngas).
This syngas will then be fired in the combined cycle power plant as usual gas.
For this Jizan Gasification Plant, Saudi Aramco pre-qualified and have invited to bid (ITB) nine teams of companies:
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- CB&I Lummus in Netherlands with Petrofac from UK
- Daelim Industrial from South Korea
- Foster Wheeler from Saudi Arabia with Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) from South Korea
- GS Engineering and Construction from South Korea
- JGC from Japan
- KBR from Saudi Arabia with China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corporation(HQCEC) from China
- Saipem from Italy
- Samsung Engineering from South Korea
In this competition the preference will be given to the companies having an experience in the gasification process and being able to meet Saudi Aramco requirements in term of local content.
In practice it means that some of the current standalone bidders will likely form consortium together to meet these expectations.
Regarding the air separation unit, Saudi Aramco made the decision to award it on build-own-and-operate contract basis.
Then for the sulfur recovery unit, Saudi Aramco transferred it from the refinery package to the power plant package as the performances of the desulfurization unit will be directly related to the gasification process.
With this new alignment of the most important projects of the Jizan Economic City (JEC), Saudi Aramco expect the start the Jizan Refinery Project, the Jizan IGCC and the Port of Jizan all together in the same time in 2016.