Saudi Gazette report

SAUDI Aramco has signed several memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and commercial agreements with British companies on the sidelines of the visit of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense. The signing of the landmark agreements coincide with the announcement of Saudi Aramco President & CEO Amin H. Al-Nasser at the Saudi-UK CEO Forum on Thursday that Saudi Aramco has a massive investment program over the next ten years. He also added that it will include a number of large world scale projects where British businesses can play a major role.

The MoUs, inked by Saudi Aramco with Royal Dutch Shell, Imperial College, The Welding Institute (TWI) and The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), reflect the company’s close ties to UK and the breadth of its strategic interests.

According to the MoU between Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell, both parties agreed to jointly pursue international gas business opportunities, including upstream development, liquefaction projects and other aspects of the gas value chain. The MoU reflects Saudi Aramco’s strategy to expand its natural gas assets while acknowledging Royal Dutch Shell’s strength in LNG, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Saudi Aramco also signed a MoU with the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), one of the world’s leading think tanks and research establishments and a frequent host to visiting heads of government and senior political leaders. The MoU reflects a long-standing relationship and paves the way for further cooperation on assessing changes in the global and national energy markets and policies.

Saudi Aramco also signed a MoU with Imperial College London. The MoU seeks to establish joint projects targeting frontier technologies and developments in chemical engineering, petroleum and geoscience, mechanical engineering and advanced materials.

Saudi Aramco inked a further MoU with the internationally acclaimed Cambridge-based independent research and technology institution, TWI, which is recognized as a global center of excellence in materials joining and engineering processes. The MoU sets out plans to establish the multi-stakeholder Non-Metallic Innovation Center (NIC) at TWI alongside NSIRC (National Structural Integrity Research Center), a partnership with leading academic institutions, research centers, energy companies and composite materials manufacturers.

The four MoUs were complemented with two other commercial accords including one with Aberdeen-based Downhole Products to further strengthen Saudi Aramco’s drilling operations. Following the signing ceremonies, Al-Nasser said, “Today, we are further expanding our relationship with six agreements and MoUs with leading British companies and organizations to support Saudi Aramco’s long business growth strategy. “At Saudi Aramco we have real, tangible and meaningful opportunities to collaborate and build partnerships now and in the future. The strengths of British businesses and industry can play a role in Saudi Aramco’s business plan including in our diversification and expansion strategies underscored by the framework of Vision 2030.”

Wood wins Aramco-SABIC

project management deal

In a significant new step toward the successful implementation of Saudi Aramco and SABIC’s fully integrated, strategic crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex in the Kingdom, the partners on Thursday awarded Wood, a leading global British-owned provider of project management and professional and engineering services in the petrochemicals industrial field, a contract for project management and front-end engineering design (FEED).

The award of the contract follows the signing of an MoU in Nov. 2017 between Saudi Aramco and SABIC to assist in bringing the mega-project to its next stage of development. The scope of the contract primarily includes the finalization of the project scope, selection of technology providers, updating project economics and performing FEED.

Aramco’s Al-Nasser said: “This is an important milestone in a partnership that we are proud of between Saudi Aramco and SABIC, a partnership that is in line with the Aramco strategy for business integration, adding value and tackling global growth opportunities in chemicals. It is also important to mention that this project will achieve a direct conversion rate from crude oil to chemicals of almost 50 percent, a globally unprecedented rate.”

Yousef Al-Benyan, SABIC vice chairman & CEO, said that the strategic COTC project, which through an innovative configuration, will generate the world’s highest proven yield conversion rate of oil to chemicals in a competitive and sustainable way. “The complex will have a great economic impact and will create thousands of direct and indirect job opportunities for Saudis. In addition, the complex offers synergy and conversion of the strategic goals and objectives of Saudi Aramco and SABIC,” Al-Benyan said.