Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Aramco) is eyeing a start-up of its Jazan paraxylene (PX) unit in the third quarter of 2024, according to a market source on March 11.

The company is making progress on its 800,000 metric tons (mt) per year PX plant, but there remains no official start-up timeline, according to the source.

Market participants have been keeping a close watch on Jazan's progress, it being one of the few new PX plants yet to commence production.

Jazan's PX unit was last expected to debut in June 2023, along with those from Sinopec, PetroChina, Cnooc, and Zhejiang Petrochemical in the same year, OPIS reported.

"Jazan's PX delay has to do with better margins in gasoline," said Duncan Clark, Vice President, and Global Aromatics & Fibers Team Lead at Chemical Market Analytics (CMA) by OPIS.

"Aramco's overall PX operating rate is less than 60% at present," added Ashish Pujari, Vice President of Aromatics and Fibers at CMA.

The Jazan refinery is operating well nonetheless, according to both Clark and Pujari.

Aramco's Jazan PX unit has been delayed by over seven years, data from OPIS showed. The plant was initially expected to start in early 2017, before being postponed to 2021, but delayed again amid security concerns in Jazan.

According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) in Oct. 2021, Houthi militia from Yemen launched missile attacks targeting civilians and properties in the bordering Jazan region. Subsequent attacks in March 2022, also reported by SPA, targeted oil installations in both Jeddah and Jazan.

Aramco did not confirm whether delays to Jazan's PX start-up were due to the attacks.

According to Aramco, Jazan is a 400,000 mt/year full-conversion refinery, designed to produce gasoline, ultra-light sulfur diesel (ULSD), benzene, and PX. It is expected to provide feedstock for an integrated gasification combined-cycle plant, the largest of its kind in the world and capable of producing up to 3.8 gigawatts (GW) of power.


This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.


-- Reporting by Chuan Ong, cong@opisnet.com ; Editing by Lujia Wang,


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-11-24 0743ET