Progress Technical Report
Progress Report
Yousef Alhannoush, 200900150
AR-RAZI, SABIC Company
Mechanical Engineering Department, Engineering College
Prince Mohammed University (PMU)
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Summary
I am a mechanical engineer student who is working as a coop student at one of SABIC
Companies that is named as AR-RAZI Company. This company is also called as the
Saudi Methanol Company. It produces chemical methanol since 1979. Since my working
at this company, I have learned many things that are very important and helpful for my
future career path. It is very interesting to work with experienced engineers from all
fields. I found that AR-RAZI Company is fulfilling my learning wish and supporting me
to be more involved in the working environment. Also, I am really pleased for the
welcoming and professional deals coming from AR-RAZI employees. My working
progress is really good as I feel I am gaining more work experience in mechanical
engineering field. I feel my work at this company will cover most of the things I need
within the scheduled time. This report will cover the background of SABIC and its
company AR-RAZI. In addition, it will cover what I learned, what I would like to learn,
the most things I learned, the plans of training according to the company, and the contact
information of my supervisor.
SABIC Background
In 1975, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia created the Master Gas System and sketched up
some plans to use these gases as feedstock for the petrochemical industry. Then, the
Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu carried up the task of structuring Jubail and
Yanbu cities as state of industrial centers to locate the planned petrochemical plants.
In 1976, a royal decree was issued to establish such companies to produce basic
industrials that derive from petroleum productions. At that time, the biggest company that
had been established was the Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation named as
(SABIC). The primary task of SABIC was to operate hydrocarbon and mineral-based
industries in the Kingdom and transferring them into value added industrial products
(Wikipedia, October).
“IN 2008, SABIC was ranked the No. 1 chemicals company in Asia and No. 4 in the
world by Fortune Global 500. The first three global positions in terms of revenue were
BASF, Dow Chemical and Bayer. SABIC also improved its position from being the
world’s 301st largest corporation in 2006 to 227th in 2007”(Harrison, 2009).
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SABIC is a domestic and an overseas company that has various branches in the world.
The total no of employees is Over 33,000 spread worldwide in Westren Europe, Asia
(South East Asia, Japan, China,) North America and the Middle East and these branches
are also as a key markets.
SABIC Products are:
1- Basic Chemicals: which include Ethylene, Methanol, Propylene, Benzene, Xylene
(Paraxylene), Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE), Styrene, Crude Industrial
Ethanol (CIE), Butadiene and Butene.
2- Intermediate Chemicals: which include Ethylene Glycol (MEG, DEG, TEG),
Ethylene Dichloride (EDC), Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM), Purified
Terephthalic Acid (PTA), 2-Ethyl Hexanol (2-EH), Caustic Soda (NaOH),
Dioctyl Phthalate (DOP), Industrial Gases (Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon,
Krypton/Xenon); and Linear Alpha Olefins (LAO).
3- PVC and Polyester: which include Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Polystyrene (PS),
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Resin, Polyester Fibers, and Melamine.
4- Polyolefins: which include Polyethylenes, Polypropylene.
5- Fertilizers: which include Ammonia, Urea; Phosphate Compound and Liquid
fertilizers; and Sulphuric Acid.
6-
Metals: which include Long Steel, Hot Rolled, Cold Rolled and Galvanized Flat
Steel Products, and Aluminum (Wikipedia, 2009).
The following paragraph will cover the background of AR-RAZI Company as well as the
starting day of my training and the training place, the name and contacts of the training
supervisor, and the company’s training schedule.
Background
All AR-RAZI plants are in Jubail industrial city, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
It is not the only company who produces methanol; however, it is the biggest company to
produce methanol in the kingdom. The first plant was fully established in 1983. After
eight years, the second plant was constructed and followed by the third plant in 1997. The
fourth plant started to produce methanol in 1999. This plant is considered to be the
biggest plant in AR-RAZI Company. AR-RAZI is considered to be the largest single
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complex methanol production plant in the world. The company has other facilities but it
is not as big as these plants.
As it is mentioned earlier in the abstract, I am working at one of SABIC Company named
AR-RAZI, and also called Saudi Methanol Company. I am working in the production
building in the reliably department in the static section. The starting day of my coop
training was on Statuary, June 16, 2012. On the next day, I started with a safety-training
program that helps employees and trainers to protect themselves from the dangerous and
hazardous situations. The passing of the safety-training program is the only way to get
the employment ID card in order to be able to enter and access all the plants. The
department is responsible for inspection, designing, decision making, checking the new
products, ordering the replaced equipments in the factory. The department schedule is not
very clear much as they are very busy with the shutdown right now; however, the planned
for me to be in the static section in order to learn about all the equipment related to that
section such as pipes, heat exchangers, vessels, reactors, reformer, boilers etc. They
stated that soon they finish teaching me the all the static equipment that are in plant 3 in
AR-RAZI, then they will do a rotation and put me in the rotating section that deals with
the all rotating equipments such as compressors, turbines, pumps, etc. The name of my
supervisor who is the manager of the production building in the Reliability Department
is Mohammed S. Al-Dossary. The phone number of his office is +966 (3) 357 7992 and
the email is [email protected]. The company’s training schedule is to train us
every week in one subject. The manager chooses a specific equipment to teach us
according to the circumstances as the plant now in unplanned shutdown. The manager
covers at least a subject every week. He told us that he will try to cover the following
subjects:

In Static:
 Safety orientation
 Heat
Exchanger
 Vessel
 Reactor
 boiler
 Reformer
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 Pipes

In Rotating:
 Compressor
 Turbine
 Pump
Progress
Since my staying at AR-RAZI I have been gaining many information and feel that I am
enhancing my knowledge. The important things I learned are will be clarified here. I
learned that SABIC first cares about safety more than any thing else. SABIC has the SHE
program stands for Safety health and environment that is really pleased me. In the first
day, I recognized that the employee health is a critical aspect of work. I have been taught
about the three emergency alert-tunes that are for evacuation, about the assembly points
that employees must gather at, whenever there is an emergency evacuation, and about the
safety equipments that must be used in the plant.
I learned about reliability in mechanical engineering filed that deals with inspection,
designing, etc. Reliability group inspect after the maintenance group finish the required
work, decision making, newly coming products, and providing recommendations and
suggestions. The main reason for this program is to maintain the plants in an efficient and
successful approach, which will prevent leaks and plant downtime.
Since I am at the static department, I started learning about the heat exchanger. I went to
the site at AR-RAZI 3 to see the heat exchanger. I saw the design of it and have been
taught about the working process. I learned that a heat exchanger is an equipment that
permits to transfer heat from a hot fluid to a cold one without any direct contact of fluids.
The types that are used in AR-RAZI 3 are the shell and tube heat exchanger (one pass
tube-side), the straight tube heat exchanger (two pass tube-side), floating head exchanger,
horizontal heat exchanger, vertical heat exchanger, U-Tube heat exchanger, fixed head,
and kettle type. The main purpose of using it is to facilitate chemical reactions. In
counter-flow heat exchangers, the fluids enter the exchanger from opposite ends.
However, in the parallel-flow, two fluids enter the exchanger at the same end. The tube
materials used are from stainless steel to avoid any corrosion, whereas the baffle is from
copper. I have learned how to use the General Process Description Manual and how to
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relate it to the flow chart. I observed that the procedure description is very helpful to
prepare a PHD thesis as it opens the eyes for many study cases.
There are six stages that a methanol plant goes through:
1- The feed gas comes from ARAMCO as a neutral gas (NG).
2- Hydro Desulfurization (HDS).
3- Reformer.
4- Compression.
5- Synthesis Methanol (reactor).
6- Distillation.
7- Producing Methanol.
The most things I learned are the basic safety instructions, the heat exchanger types, the
process of heat exchangers, and the places of heat exchangers in AR-RAZI 3. In addition,
I learned that the most tubes of the heat exchanger that may get affected are in the high
flow rate section, which is on top or bottom of the tube sheet. The maintenance way for
solving such a problem like that is by closing the damaged tube in welding by using
stainless steel materials. Moreover, I learned about the materials used to clean the heat
exchangers such as high-pressure water jet, acid, sandblasting, drill rods, or bullet
cleaning.
The main problem now they are facing is the reformer as it is not covering the required
work which leads to unplanned shutdown (turn around shutdown). They are planning to
operate the plant again after 45 days from the shutdown day. This is a very good
opportunity for me to see most of the plant equipments and to see what is inside them.
Also, it is a good thing to experience the problems they face while inspecting and doing
maintenance.
The scheduled tasks to be performed will be more explained in the below table in the
plans section.
Plans
I started with the company and they assigned to me some tasks to do, but they did not
provide me a plan for the eight weeks. From my staying at the company, I could put a
plan to follow and to be able to gain every possible experience that will help me in my
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future career. The planned tasks I performed and would like to perform are as follows and
might be changed due to the supervisor decision.
Number Week
Task to be performed
Week 1
Safety orientation
Week 2
Heat Exchanger
Week 3
Vessel
Week 4
Reactor and boiler
Week 5
Reformer
Week 6
Pipes
Week 7
Compressor and Turbine
Week 8
Pump
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Appendices
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Reference
Harrison, Roger. (2009, October 5). SABIC climbing up the growth ladder. Arab News.
From:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6&section=0&article=127085&d=5&m=10&y=2009&
pix=business.jpg&category=Business
Mohammed S. Al-Dossary. The phone number of his office is +966 (3) 357 7992 and
the email is [email protected].
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). (2008). From
http://www.sabic.com/
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