Aramco says Jizan product cargo was in storage from another location

Dubai — Saudi Aramco said reports its Jizan refinery shipped a refined product cargo to Singapore are inaccurate.

"The shipment from Jizan refers to a product cargo from storage which had initially originated from another location," the company said Sept. 29. S&P Global Platts reported Sept. 28 that Aramco was sending its first cargo from its new Jizan refinery to Singapore, a shipment of 475,000 barrels of gasoil, citing data from data analytics firm Kpler. Kpler said it didn't have a comment.

The Jizan refinery received two cargoes in May, one of about 775,000 barrels of ULSD from Jubail and another 505,000 barrels of gasoil from Yanbu, according to Kpler.

Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said in August that first processing at Jizan was expected to begin by the first quarter of 2021. The newly constructed 400,000 b/d refinery, also spelled Jazan, will start with crude runs of 200,000 b/d before ramping up to 400,000 b/d, Nasser said at the time. It had previously been expected to be commissioned at the end of 2019 and be ready for full operations in the second half of 2020.