Global law firm White & Case LLP represented Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) on its joint venture with China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) to build, own and operate a grassroots full conversion oil refinery to be located in Yanbu’, Saudi Arabia. Once completed, the new refinery will have capacity to process 400,000 barrels per day of heavy crude oil and will produce a full slate of refined products.
“We are pleased to have provided counsel to Saudi Aramco on this strategic initiative, which exemplifies Saudi Aramco’s commitment to meet the energy demands of consumers across the world,” said White & Case partner Wendell Maddrey.
The Saudi Arabian joint company established to implement the project is named the Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) Limited. Construction of the refinery is under way and is scheduled to be operational in 2014.
The White & Case team was led by partners Wendell Maddrey (New York), Jason Webber (New York) and Hallam Chow (Hong Kong) and Waleed Al-Nuwaiser (Riyadh). Associates Scott Birnbaum and Alykhan Kurji (New York) and Mohammed Al-Awadh, Abdulaziz Albabtain and Guillaume de Lalande (Riyadh) assisted with the project development and formation of the joint venture company.
White & Case has advised Saudi Aramco on several similar large scale transactions in recent years, including a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and The Dow Chemical Company completed late last year to build and operate a $20 billion world-scale integrated chemicals complex in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.
White & Case has represented Saudi Aramco and its predecessor company, the Arabian American Oil Company, for more than half a century.
With more than 200 lawyers internationally, White & Case’s Global Project Finance Practice offers market-leading expertise regarding project structuring and development, financing, government regulation, construction and other contract issues, and mergers and acquisitions. This expertise spans several sectors, including oil and gas, power, petrochemicals, mining and metals, infrastructure, telecoms and PPP/PFI.
For 2011, White & Case ranked first among US-based law firms worldwide, by deal value – US$20 billion – for closed global project finance transactions, according to data compiled by Dealogic, and first among all international law firms worldwide in the average dollar value – US$446 million – for closed global project finance transactions. Three White & Case deals – the US$10.3 billion Barzan Gas Project, the US$9.1 billion SEA high-speed railway public-private partnership and the US$5.4 billion Nord Stream pipeline project – were highlighted by Dealogic as the No. 1, 2 and 3 deals, respectively, in its listing of the top-10 deals for 2011.
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