Control System World

Yokogawa Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco has signed a Corporate Procurement Agreement (CPA) that encompasses all the services Yokogawa provides to Saudi Aramco. This agreement is a testimony to Yokogawa’s strong presence in Saudi Arabia. The CPA with Saudi Aramco covers equipment supply, project management, engineering, spare parts, and maintenance services. It greatly simplifies the process by which Saudi Aramco purchases process automation equipment from Yokogawa. Yokogawa is the first automation vendor to sign such an agreement with Saudi Aramco.

In the recent years, Yokogawa has doubled the size of its facilities in the Dhahran Techno-Valley. In addition to engineering and project execution capabilities, the expanded facilities allow Yokogawa to manufacture specific components of its control systems and to strengthen its research and development activities.

Under the Saudi government’s Nitaqat Program, Yokogawa is in the top Platinum Saudization tier, and will firmly remain at this level in the future. The current workforce of 300 at Yokogawa Saudi Arabia includes a large female engineering team. This team supports not only Saudi projects but also projects in other GCC countries.

“With the true and sincere support of the Saudi government, customers, and academia, Yokogawa Saudi Arabia has successfully executed many process automation projects in the region,” said Shuzo Kaihori, President and CEO of Yokogawa Electric Corporation.

Through these projects, Yokogawa has developed the capabilities of many Saudi engineers and technicians by deploying and fully involving them in every facet of project execution, and will remain in the Kingdom with a workforce that has the knowledge and expertise to support its installed base throughout its lifecycle.

Since April 2007, Yokogawa has been providing a one-year Graduate Engineer Training Program and shorter internship programs that are specially tailored to the needs of the Saudi job market, targeting recent graduates and students of Saudi universities and colleges such as King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Jubail Industrial College (JIC), and Yanbu Industrial College (YIC). So far nearly 130 Saudi trainees have benefited from these programs, which have included visits to Yokogawa global engineering centers in Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands.

Mr. Kaihori appreciates the contributions made by the Saudi engineers, saying, “I am not exaggerating when I say that Yokogawa Saudi Arabia’s operation owes much of its success to the central role played by these Saudi personnel.”

MUSCAT -- Preliminary engineering design work on a giant refinery complex at Duqm has commenced, marking a key step in the development of, among other things, a major petrochemicals hub on Oman's Wusta coast. According to an official source at Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries Company (DRPIC), which is spearheading the estimated $6 billion scheme, the preliminary design will provide the groundwork for the all-important Front End Engineering Design (FEED) due to be tendered out by around the end of this year, or early in 2013.

DRPIC is a 50/50 joint venture of Oman Oil Company (OOC), a wholly Omani government owned energy investment vehicle, and IPIC, a commercial entity owned by the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The JV is overseeing the development of 11.5 million tonnes per annum (230,000 barrels per day) grassroots refinery at the Duqm Special Economic Zone, to be followed by investments in downstream petrochemical projects in the second phase.

It is understood that the preliminary engineering design is being primarily undertaken in-house by DRPIC's newly appointed Project Management Consultant, Shaw Energy and Chemicals Limited (acquired recently by French oilfield services giant Technip). Their appointment as Project Management Consultant, along with Christopher Wszolek as Project Director, was formally announced by DRPIC last month. The latter is a veteran of the international refining and petrochemicals industry with over three decades of experience, including the last 20 years as Senior Project Manager at Saudi Aramco.

Reuters: Oman Oil Company , the energy investment arm of the Oman government, will invest around US$800mn to build a petrochemicals plant in Sohar that will produce purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and polyethylene terephtalate (PET), according to the chairman of the company.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of an agreement signing ceremony between Oman Oil and Vale on Monday at the Crowne Plaza Muscat, H E Nasser bin Khamis al Jashmi, chairman of Oman Oil and the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas, said that the capacity of new PTA-PET plant in Sohar will be about 1mn tonnes per year.

He said, "We are establishing a company to set up this petrochemical project in Sohar which will produce PTA-PET. The investment in this project will be about US$800mn."

SNC-Lavalin (TSX: SNC) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a 10-year contract to operate and maintain the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) project located in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The estimated value of this contract is $135 million.

With a mandate to conduct high-calibre research in energy economics, policy, technology, and the environment, the KAPSARC project consists of three major components: a 65,000 m2 research and office complex, a residential community that will accommodate approximately 1,000 residents, and a utility zone to serve them. This zone consists of a central utility plant with a 5-MW photovoltaic array, water storage tanks, a chilled water plant, a site operations and maintenance building, and transportation operations.

SNC-Lavalin will provide integrated facility and community management services to the project.

“We are delighted by the opportunity to be involved in such a state-of-the-art facility,” said Charlie Rate, Executive Vice-President, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. “We continue to solidify our footprint in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a key market for our business.”