As the global petroleum industry increasingly looks to increase petrochemicals output in the pursuit of increased revenues from its crude oil streams, Saudi state firm Aramco has announced a game-changing project to convert crude oil directly into chemicals.

In a joint venture with state-led petchems firm Sabic, Aramco is developing a crude oil to chemicals (COTC) plant at Yanbu on the Saudi Red Sea coast that will convert 400,000 b/d of Saudi crude into 9mn t/y of chemicals as well as base oils. (CONTINUED - 886 WORDS)