SAUDI ARABIA - The Ras Tanura Refinery.

A $1.2 bn upgrade of the Ras Tanura plant on the Gulf coast was mostly completed in April 1999, several months behind schedule. Its capacity was raised from 265,000 b/d to 300,000 b/d. A 44,000 b/d hydrocracker unit was closed in mid-2000, less than two months after it came on stream, and could

not begin work until September 2001. The upgrade represented the first phase. In the second phase, completed in 2004, the plant got 200,000 b/d condensate splitter. The final phase is to raise the plant's capacity to 1m b/d by 2010, making Ras Tanura the world's largest refinery. Saudi Aramco is considering revamping the refinery at a cost of $4-5 bn and adding a petrochemical complex.

Ras Tanura is the oldest of the refineries in Saudi Arabia. It came on stream in 1945 with a capacity of 50,000 b/d. Several units were added in the following decades. After a 1983 decision to modernise the plant, a 265,000 b/d crude oil distillation unit and a 20,000 b/d vacuum unit were installed to replace two ageing 90,000 b/d crude distillation plants and other units (see background in Vol. 61, DT No. 14).