The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and ConocoPhillips announced today the re-launch of the bidding process for the construction of the planned 400,000 barrel-per-day export refinery at the Yanbu Industrial City, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

“Market improvements have provided a good opportunity to reactivate the bidding process for the Yanbu Export Refinery Project,” said Khalid G. Al-Buainain, senior vice president, Refining, Marketing and International, Saudi Aramco. “This state-of-the-art refinery will provide high-quality refined products for global and domestic markets, and will add significant value to our downstream business portfolio. It will also support our goal of fostering increased industrial development and job opportunities within the Kingdom.”

“ConocoPhillips is pleased to resume the bidding process now that the markets are more favorable, and we are committed to working with Saudi Aramco to progress the Yanbu Export Refinery Project,” said Willie C. Chiang, senior vice president, Refining, Marketing and Transportation, ConocoPhillips. “This project will provide very competitive new supplies of refined products to help meet the world’s growing energy demand.”

The full-conversion refinery is being designed to process Arabian heavy crude supplied by Saudi Aramco. It will produce high-quality, ultra-low sulfur refined products that will meet current and future product specifications. The project is targeted to start up in the third quarter of 2014.

Invitation for bid notices for the early work and major packages have been issued to prequalified local and international contractors. The major packages include a coker unit, crude facility, gasoline unit, hydrocracker, tank farm, offsite pipelines, high voltage electrical packages, as well as other infrastructure packages. Early work packages are expected to be awarded in November 2009. Bids for the remaining packages are due in the first quarter of 2010 and are expected to be awarded in the second quarter of 2010.