S-OIL announced on Nov. 17 that it has finally decided to invest more than 9 trillion won in the “Shaheen Project” to support energy conversion in Korea. Shaheen means a hawk in Arabic.
The total cost of the Shaheen Project is 9.26 trillion won, the largest ever investment in Korea made by Saudi Aramco, the largest shareholder of S-Oil. Aramco holds a 63.4 percent stake in S-OIL through Aramco Overseas Company (AOC).
The Shaheen Project is a follow-up to a US$4 billion phase 1 petrochemical project completed in 2018. It is intended to produce up to 3.2 million tons of petrochemical products per year.
S-OIL’s announcement was made on the day of a summit between President Yoon Suk-yeol of Korea and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who visited Korea to expand bilateral cooperation in future energy and infrastructure construction.
The project involves the construction of the world’s largest steam cracker, which will use Aramco’s advanced thermal crude-to-chemicals (TC2C) technology to produce high value-added petrochemical products used as raw materials for plastics and synthetic resins. Its construction is expected to begin in 2023 for completion in 2026.
