Week 34 in Review: Solar investment, SABIC’s marketing, and a long look at the Aramco hydrocarbon journey

Here are some of the top stories from Aramco LIFE over the past week.

Aramco invests in giant Saudi Arabia solar project

With an investment value of SR3.4 billion, the 1,500 megawatt Sudair Solar PV project is part of the Kingdom’s commitment to deploy a variety of low carbon energy solutions in Saudi Arabia.

Aramco’s stake, held by the Saudi Aramco Power Company, is invested alongside ACWA Power and the Water & Electricity Holding Company (Badeel), who each hold 35%.

The Sudair project is located at Sudair Industrial City, a planned city near Riyadh, and represents the first project under the Public Investment Fund’s renewable energy program. 

SABIC takes on marketing as part of realignment of responsibilities with Aramco

Following Aramco’s acquisition of a 70% stake in SABIC in June 2020, SABIC became the chemicals arm of Aramco amid an extensive range of optimization synergies and shared value creation initiatives that included feedstock allocation, stream and commercial integration, and human resources. 

Olivier Thorel, Aramco’s vice president of Chemicals, noted that the strategic importance of this integration is in line with both SABIC’s and Aramco’s long-term vision to be the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals company. 

Among the most important developments to date is the realignment of marketing responsibilities between SABIC and the Aramco Trading Company (ATC) as part of Aramco’s “one face to market” strategy. 

Nasser Lasloum, chemicals director of Aramco Asia, said: “The changes will drive further operational efficiencies, strengthen the brands of both companies and their combined products and services offering, and help to maintain competitiveness.”

The Aramco Hydrocarbon Journey

In the first in a series of stories, The Arabian Sun takes a look at exploration’s role in the hydrocarbon journey and its decades of greenhouse gas mitigation.

Exploration is the early stage of an Aramco hydrocarbon’s journey, and our exploration history goes back more than 80 years.

Through advancements in seismic imaging, Aramco has been able to map subsurface areas across the Kingdom.

With the growing amount of data being collected, we have refined the analysis of that data to more precise exploration of hydrocarbons, leading to far greater efficiency and reduction in costs.

Decade of leadership development commended

For the past decade, over 120,000 current and future leaders have passed through the doors of The Leadership Center (TLC), the company’s in-house development center. Located in Ras Tanura, TLC offers an off-site development experience, while drawing on more than eight decades of proud Aramco history and leadership examples that make our company a leader in oil and gas, petrochemicals, technology, and renewable energy. 

What the company gains from the programs of TLC is clear: world-class development prepares leaders for the unique challenges that Aramco faces. 

ARLANXEO solution earns top marks globally for sustainability

A jury of experts in the field of polymer science and technology has ranked Aramco subsidiary, ARLANXEO first in European Rubber Journal’s Top 10 Elastomers for Sustainability (E4S), for the project TECHSYN: a new tire technology platform combining chemically optimized synthetic rubbers from ARLANXEO with tailor-made silica from Solvay and improved mixing technology from Bridgestone.

TECHSYN enables improved fuel economy and tire wear properties at the same time, with no other performance trade-offs. As a result, tires made with TECHSYN:

•  Contribute to reduced CO2 emissions while enhancing tread mileage, 

•  Benefit from up to 30 % better wear efficiency and a rolling resistance that is reduced by up to 6% (compared to other conventional Bridgestone EMIA Summer products).