Reason #239 Why I Love To Blog: Indications That Prince Salman's Strategic Plan Is To Focus More On Midstream/Downstream; Less On Upstream

Updates

Later, 9:14 p.m. Central Time: Look at the blurb from The Oil & Gas Journal in the original post below. Think about it for a minute. "A fully integrated crude oil-to-chemicals complex in Saudi Arabia." Prince Salman is not thinking of a simple complex; he's going for a world-class, record-setting facility. But that requires cash. Lots of cash. And with oil at $50 his country continues to hemorrhage cash on a monthly basis.

In an earlier post, his energy minister was quoted as saying that he plans / Saudi plans to let KSA crude oil inventories to continue to decline. Once the data comes out showing how far KSA crude oil inventories have fallen, there's a very, very good chance the price of oil could spike.

Idle chatter.

Original Post

 

Earlier today I updated "Trending" over at the "Top Ten Lists."

The first thing I posted was something I have been alluding to for the past week or so and finally said it outright, so it cannot be mistaken:

1. There are indications that Saudi Arabia has changed strategy; will focus on refining; will not increase production; will concentrate on Prince Salman's plan with greater emphasis on midstream, downstream; less emphasis on upstream

Now this, from The Oil & Gas Journal which I just came across, posted over at Twitter, six hours ago:

Saudi Aramco and Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) plan to conduct a joint feasibility study for development of a fully integrated crude oil-to-chemicals complex in Saudi Arabia.

The proposed plant would use a crude oil-to-chemicals process derived from improved refining technology that mixes innovative configurations with proven conversion technologies to create an integrated petrochemical complex capable of maximizing chemical yield, transforming and recycling byproducts, driving efficiencies of scale and resource optimization, and diversifying Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical feedstock mix, the companies said.

Pending a positive outcome of the study, Aramco and SABIC plan to establish a joint venture to advance the project, which if approved, would fulfill Saudi Vision 2030 goals for the downstream sector.

That second paragraph .... "mixes innovative configurations ... yada, yada, yada ...." sounds like it was written by:

a) MuskMelon
b) any recent Harvard MBA grad
c) former CEO of Shell
d) Bill Gates