Offline Question: Is this substantial increase in cost for Yanbu Project & will this be high sulfur petcoke?
Yes high sulfur just like Kuwait ~6-7%sulfur BUT….. just like Kuwait they are susposed be putting in Resid HDS units get it back marginal blend anode grade. If at least one 4 major Saudi expansions dont have big Resid HDS then all these mideast calciners (& smelters) are going be SOL on petcoke! Not positive yet the Kuwait expansion were putting in enough additional Resid HDS capaicty for it stay anode either (really adds to cost – which makes the SR20bn sound like the Saudis didnot).
I just ran Currency converter and got ~ 4:1 value ($US 5.36bn today)! So the $SR 20bn is only $US 5.4bh which looks be scope reduction in $US 12-13bn project.
I would say yes they had to cut scope ~nearly half – all other regional projects rebid only got 10-20% discount from high cost during 2007/09 time frame.
Also doesnt look good for these new Saudi cokers to have upstream costly Resid HDS units to keep petcoke out HS fuelcoke region and into LS Fuel/HS blend anode regime …….unless there are existing RHDS that may do batch operations for making blocked runs for the calciner needsd but even then wouldnt be at volume level MidEast region needs now to supoort all new calciners feeding new smelter capacity.
