$600 million Storage facility on Red Sea coast
With the Shoaiba storage facility, Saudi Aramco expects to facilitate the distribution of the transportation fuels and petrochemical bulk across the different regions of its local market in Saudi Arabia.
These transportation fuels and petrochemical bulk include mainly Gasoline, Diesel, and Benzene with a rather unbalanced consumption between Central, Western and Eastern regions.
Respectively these regions consume:
- 381 million b/y in Central Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)
- 2419 million b/y in Western KSA
- 267 million b/y in Eastern KSA
Saudi Arabia is facing one of the most fastest growth of fuel consumption with:
- 6% for the oil
- 7% for the gasoline
Saudi Aramco selected Shoaiba as it is located 220 km South of Jeddah along the Red Sea coast
Shoaiba seems to be at the optimized crossroads between the sources of supply and the volume of fuels and aromatics to be distributed in the different regions of the Kingdom.
The Gasoline, Diesel and Benzene will be shipped in Shoaiba from the refineries at Yanbu and Petro Rabigh before being distributed along the southwest Red Sea coast.
The project involves construction of a:
- Marine terminal
- Tank farm
The Shoaiba terminal shall be designed to store about 400, 000 barrels of Gasoline, Diesel and Benzene.
By comparison this storage capacity is equivalent to one day production in the Satorp refinery.
Shoaiba storage facility will complete the network of other storage centers actually under construction such as Wasea in the center of Saudi Arabia.
Shoaiba tanks farm to be awarded on LSTK basis
Originally Saudi Aramco had the plan to develop the Shoaiba Terminal project on build-own-transfer (BOT) contract based on 3 years construction and 22 years leasing.
This form of contract is less demanding on capital expenditure and is usually preferred for now strategic assets.
In Saudi Arabia the midstream assets are strategic and it should have been unusual for Saudi Aramco to us it here.
After debates, Saudi Aramco decided to organize the bidding on Lump Sum Turn Key (LSTK) basis.
Since that decision is now made, Saudi Aramco will proceed to the pre-qualification process of the potential bidders.
In this new bidding context, Saudi Aramco is expecting to send the call for tenders for the Lump Sum Turn Key (LSTK) contract of the Shoaiba Terminal project on the Red Sea coast by the end of 2012 for a completion in 2014.
