Saudi Arabia's Petromin (The Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company) has announced that its new SR100 (US$26.67) million blending plant in Jeddah will go on stream in the second quarter of 2010, an upgrade to its existing Jeddah blending plant, further boosting its annual production capacity. Petromin's new lube blending plant at Saudi Aramco Industrial Zone in Jeddah has a production capacity of 250,000 tons of lubricating oils annually.

The new facility which will produce all types of lube oils for the automotive, industrial and private sectors will be the largest lube blending plant in the Middle East and will be completely automated. The facility will also have grease production capacity of 25,000 tons per year.

The Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company was formed in 1968 by a Royal decree. On the date of its inception, the company's name was Petromin Lubricating Oil Company (Petrolube) which was one of the joint ventures of the General Organization of Petroleum and Minerals (Petromin). The current joint venture is between Saudi Aramco, holding 71% equity and Mobil Investments with remaining 29%. The company was renamed as the Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company in 1997 after Petromin's shares in the company were transferred to Saudi Aramco.

The company started its lubricant production through its first blending plant in Jeddah in 1970. The first plant in Jeddah was designed to blend 70,000 tons; presently the plant blends 150,000 tons or 1 million bbls annually. Another plant was built in Riyadh, completed in 1982 with a capacity of 150,000 tons. In 1985, another plant was built in Jubail with a similar capacity for lubricants along with the first grease manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to produce 6000 tons of all kinds of greases.

Today, the Saudi Arabian Lubricating Oil Company produces over 150 different products, has 28% market share of lubricant demand in Saudi Arabia and exports to over 30 countries in the GCC, Middle East, Africa and Asia.