Aramco to ship first crude to Malaysia refinery in October: report

Saudi Aramco plans to ship the first crude oil cargo to its joint-refinery project with Malaysia’s Petronas in October, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

This will come in preparation of the trial run of the $27 billion Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project.

RAPID will comprise a 300,000-barrel per day (bpd) refinery and a petrochemical complex with a capacity of 7.7 million tons a year. Refinery operations are set to begin in 2019, with petrochemical operations to follow six to 12 months afterwards.

Saudi Aramco is set to supply 50 percent of the refinery’s crude oil with an option of increasing it to 70 percent.

Aramco and Petronas have held talks with banks to refinance an $8 billion loan for the project.

The joint-refinery is one of four new refineries in Asia, scheduled to start up from late 2018 to 2019 with a combined crude processing capacity of nearly 1.3 million bpd. They are expected to increase Asia’s crude demand while adding to fuel output in the region.