Despite strained U.S.-Saudi relations on several fronts, Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco continues to see the U.S. market as strategic and continues with plans to expand the biggest U.S. refinery with a petrochemical complex, Abdulaziz Al-Judaimi, senior vice president of Downstream at Aramco, told S&P Global Platts in an interview published on Monday. The largest U.S. refinery and the largest refinery in North America is the 630,000-bpd Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, controlled by Saudi Aramco. Motiva Enterprises plans to invest US$6.6 billion to expand the Port Arthur refinery into making chemicals, and another US$1.9 billion in a complex in Texas to produce benzene and paraxylene, Houston Chronicle reported in December. “Our investment in Motiva, after the separation from Shell, and adding the chemical expansion will testify to the fact that we look at the US as a market that is growing, is very profitable and has great […]