Saudi PetroRabigh Says To Restart Crude Unit This Week

Saudi-based PetroRabigh said on Sunday it would restart the crude oil distillation unit at its 400,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery on June 7 after scheduled maintenance.

The refining and petrochemical complex in Rabigh, on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia was shut from April 21 for nearly two months of planned maintenance. The company, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical said other units would gradually be brought online, with the ethane cracker operational again before the end of June.

The high olefin fluid catalytic cracking unit (HOFCC) would be in operation by mid-July, and by then all units at the complex would be up and running, PetroRabigh said in a stock market filing.

It added that sales would be lower because of the shutdown in the second quarter. It then specified that sales of polypropylene would drop in the first two weeks of the third quarter.