Saudi Aramco, the Crude-Oil Giant, Becomes a Force in Refining
January 26 2018 - 7:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Christopher Alessi
DUBAI -- Saudi Arabia's state oil company is building an
oil-refining empire, a major shift for the world's No. 1 crude
producer as it tries to shore up its balance sheet ahead of the
world's biggest-ever IPO and make up for income lost to OPEC
production cuts.
Over the past five years, Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as
Aramco, has boosted its global refining capacity by more than a
third to 5.4 million barrels a day, helped by new facilities along
the kingdom's Red Sea and Persian Gulf coasts, according to
Scottish energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. The kingdom also has
commissioned an additional refinery in the southwest of the
country, set to come online in 2019.
These moves and others including taking full control of the
biggest U.S. refinery, in Port Arthur, Texas, have vaulted Aramco's
global refining capacity beyond Western rivals such as Exxon Mobil
Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC. But unlike Aramco, the
international oil majors already had strong downstream businesses
to bolster their earnings when crude prices plummeted just over
three years ago.
Saudi Arabia is now one of the top three exporters of diesel to
Europe -- the world's largest diesel market for passenger vehicles
-- grabbing market share from the continent's two longtime
suppliers, Russia and the U.S. Saudi diesel sales to Europe in
October rose more than 50% year-over-year, while European imports
of American diesel fell by 34% during the same period, according to
the International Energy Agency.
Rising Saudi shipments of fuel products have helped soften the
financial blow of slashing crude-oil production and exports with
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel. As of
November, Saudi Arabia's crude exports were down 15% from a year
earlier, but exports of refined products rose nearly 28% over the
same period, according to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative,
an international group that tracks energy markets.
Russia has passed Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producer,
and the U.S. is set to overtake Saudi crude output for the first
time in a generation. At the same time, the kingdom is fighting off
threats to its market share in China from Russia, the U.S. and
fellow OPEC members like Iraq.
The refining investments were years in the making but were
accelerated by 2014's historic oil-price collapse and the kingdom's
subsequent plans to wean itself off dependence on crude exports for
revenue.
The new refining capacity also helps bolster Aramco ahead of a
planned initial public offering that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman has estimated could be valued at up to a record $2
trillion. The prince has put the Aramco IPO at the center of his
efforts to energize and diversify his country's economy.
Aramco declined to answer questions for this article. Last
April, in remarks at Columbia University, Aramco Chief Executive
Amin Nasser said the company aims to increase its refining capacity
to between 8 million and 10 million barrels a day in an effort to
better balance the company's business.
For a company that lags behind Western peers in transparency and
efficiency, Aramco's refining capabilities help it to be "more of
an integrated global energy company" like the publicly listed oil
giants, said Ayham Kamel, the head of political risk consultancy
Eurasia Group's Middle East division.
BP, Exxon and others use their refineries to help them weather
oil-market downturns because those parts of the business buy oil
and do well when prices are low. Aramco still lags behind nearly
all the world's big oil companies when it comes to how much of its
own crude output it refines -- less than half -- which is a measure
of how vertically integrated an oil major is, according to the
IEA.
"It's important for the [Saudi] political leadership to have
Aramco be more than just a crude exporter in order to maximize the
value of the company," Mr. Kamel said.
Aramco's refining operations span the world, with joint ventures
in South Korea, Japan and China, in addition to the giant Motiva
refinery in Port Arthur, Tex. These facilities give the company a
guaranteed outlet for its crude oil in its most important
markets.
But its biggest base is in Saudi Arabia itself, where Aramco has
capacity to refine about 3 million barrels of crude a day. That is
more than any single European nation, though it falls far short of
the country with the most refining capacity -- the U.S., with 18.6
million barrels a day, according Wood Mackenzie.
The Saudis have been exporting fuels like diesel at an opportune
time. Since the summer, gasoil futures on London's Intercontinental
Exchange -- a benchmark for diesel -- have soared by close to 30%,
as a booming global economy has bolstered industrial demand for the
fuel.
--Summer Said contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 26, 2018 07:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
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