Saudi Arabia has allocated land for the construction of a $6.4 billion oil refinery by France’s Total and state conglomerate Saudi Aramco, the official SPA news agency reported Tuesday.

The deal to build the refinery in Jubail, in the oil-rich Eastern Province, which will have a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), was signed by the two companies last May.
The refinery will be built on an area of around 5 million square meters (53.8 million square feet), SPA said, quoting Prince Saud Bin Abdullah Bin Thunayan Al Saud, who chairs a commission charged with developing the industrial cities of Jubail on the Gulf coast and Yanbu on the Red Sea.
The project will cost 24 billion riyals ($6.4 billion), he said.
A statement issued when the deal was signed said Aramco would supply the project with 400,000 bpd of Arabian heavy crude oil and the Saudi and French sides would share the marketing of the refinery’s output when it comes on stream in 2011.
A Total spokesperson said construction would begin in 2008.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, has in the past three years signed oil and gas deals with international majors, including an agreement with Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical to build a huge oil refining and petrochemical complex in Rabigh on the Red Sea.
(Middle East Times)