A consortium comprising Dubai’s ENOC (Emirates National Oil Company) Group and Rotary Arabia have completed construction of four new pipelines from the Red Sea port’s Farabi Petrochemicals’ Yanbu facility to the nearby independent storage facility operated by Arab Tank Terminal Ltd. (ATTL). The ATTL facility has a petrochemical storage capacity of around 288,000 m³, spread over 28 tanks.

Currently, around 70% of the Yanbu facility production output consists of linear alkyl benzene (LAB) and normal paraffins (NPN) with the remainder being assorted derivative products.

At present, the Farabi Petrochemicals’ Yanbu facility supplies not only Saudi Arabia’s domestic market, but through the port of Yanbu, it is able to export its output to customers throughout the Middle East and further afield to Europe and Asia.

Today according to ENOC Group CEO Saif Humaid Al-Falasi, about 72% of regional petrochemical output is focused on meeting the needs of local customers, with the main dominant petrochemical producer being Saudi Arabia. However, ENOC’s investment in Saudi Arabia is part of its efforts to increase overseas production capacity by at least 7.6%. One thing is clear it is part of the region’s efforts to become less dependent on exporting crude oil to customers worldwide.