Beirut (APD) - The Saudi ministry of commerce and industry has given the go-ahead for the creation of a petroleum coke plant in Jubail Industrial City on the east coast of Saudi Arabia with a total cost of SR 986.6 million ($263 million).
The plant would have a production capacity of one million tons of petroleum coke per year, the ministry announced on Tuesday.
The project will be named Manafe'h International for Petroleum Coke (COKE) (Manafe'h could be translated as advantages or benefits).
"The plant will utilize the residues from distillation operations of oil refineries and oil residues from storage tanks in order to produce petroleum coke that will be used in aluminum smelters," said Khaled Al Suleiman, undersecretary at the ministry of commerce and industry.
Petroleum coke can be employed as well in tires manufacturing and in some chemical reactions to deoxygenize acids.
"The creation of the facility thus will have a positive environmental effect as it makes it possible to dispose of distillation towers residues and petroleum residues in a safe and economical way," Suleiman added.
The ministry's statement did not disclose the timeline of the project or the names of the public or private sector entities that would develop it.
Saudi Arabia's total oil production currently stands at around 9.5 million barrels per day. [TS]
By Shikrallah Nakhoul, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2006
