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Riyadh Refinery | Oil&Gas Middle East (Jan 24, 2023)

The Riyadh Refinery is located in the Kingdom’s central area and receives its crude from the EastWest pipeline. The refinery has a gross refining capacity and net refining capacity of

The Riyadh Refinery is a wholly owned Saudi Aramco facility and the only major refinery serving the Saudi capital and its surrounding central region. With a crude processing capacity of approximately 126,000–130,000 bpd, it is the smallest of Saudi Aramco's domestic refineries by throughput, but plays a strategically critical role in supplying transportation fuels to the Kingdom's most populous urban center. The refinery has a Nelson Complexity Index (NCI) of 7.7, reflecting a moderately complex configuration with cracking and vacuum distillation capabilities. Annual throughput capacity is equivalent to approximately 6.5 million tonnes per year.

Crude Supply

The refinery receives its crude oil feedstock via the East-West Pipeline (Petroline), which transports Arabian crude from the Eastern Province across the Kingdom to the west coast and inland facilities. This pipeline connectivity makes the Riyadh Refinery independent of the Arabian Gulf export infrastructure, ensuring reliable crude supply to the landlocked capital.

Processing Units

The refinery employs a moderately complex processing configuration, centered on cracking and octane enhancement:

The vacuum column enables the refinery to process heavier crude fractions beyond atmospheric distillation. The 30,000 bpd hydrocracker upgrades heavy vacuum gas oil into lighter, high-value products, while the catalytic reformer/platformer converts naphtha into high-octane gasoline blending components.

Products

The refinery produces a full range of transportation and industrial fuels for the domestic Saudi market:

• LPG
• Naphtha
• Gasoline (multiple grades)
• Jet Fuel / Kerosene
• Automotive Diesel Oil (ADO)
• Heavy Fuel Oil
• Asphalt
• Sulfur

Recent Projects & Upgrades

Hydrocracker Modernization (2020–2021)

In a major turnaround and upgrade project, eight new hydrocracking reactors and 12 combined feed/effluent (CFE) exchangers — with a combined weight of 2,670 tonnes — were procured, transported, and installed to replace aging equipment, increasing the hydrocracking unit's fresh feed rate and improving conversion efficiency. Concurrent upgrades were carried out on the naphtha hydrotreater, kerosene hydrotreater, and platformer units to enhance production of gasoline, jet fuel, and LPG.

Sulfur Recovery Modernization (2023)

In January 2023, Saudi Aramco awarded a contract to Technip Energies to modernize sulfur recovery operations at the refinery. The scope involves the installation of three new Tail Gas Treatment (TGT) units to improve the performance of the three existing Sulfur Recovery Units (SRUs). The project targets a sulfur dioxide (SO₂) recovery efficiency of more than 99.9%, bringing the refinery into compliance with increasingly stringent Saudi emissions regulations. Technip Energies, which originally designed and built the existing SRUs in the early 2000s, is executing the project using in-Kingdom resources.

Clean Fuels Project (Ongoing)

A Clean Fuels Project is currently underway at the Riyadh Refinery, targeting the reduction of sulfur content in gasoline and diesel to 10 parts per million (ppm), and the reduction of benzene content in gasoline, in line with evolving Saudi national fuel quality standards.