Saudi Aramco's COTC project in South Korea launched

Witnessed by South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue and Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco's crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) project at the S-Oil refinery in Ulsan, South Korea was recently launched.

The project is called the Shaheen project, and Saudi Aramco owns more than 63% of the project's shares. The total cost of the project is US$7 billion and it is expected to be completed in 2026.

Saudi Aramco announced last year that it will continue to advance the Shaheen project through S-Oil. With an initial investment of 7 trillion won ($5.2 billion), the project, originally scheduled to be completed in 2024, will more than double S-Oil's refinery chemicals output to 3.2 million tons per year. The project will include a cracker to produce 1.5 million tons/year of ethylene and 770,000 tons/year of propylene from by-products of crude oil processing, including naphtha and tail gas. The plant will also produce 200,000 tonnes of butadiene and 280,000 tonnes of pure benzene per year. S-Oil also plans to build downstream plants for the production of low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) with a capacity of 880,000 tons/year and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with a capacity of 440,000 tons/year.