Heir to Saudi throne wraps up his U.S. visit
32-year-old crown prince comes to Houston, stressing kingdom’s long-standing ties to city
Mohammed bin Salman, heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia, capped a three-week U.S. tour in Houston, where the crown prince and an entourage of Saudi and American oil executives inked new deals to study multibillion-dollar U.S. projects.
The 32-year-old crown prince’s visit underscored Saudi Arabia’s long-standing ties to Houston and the U.S., one of several regions where Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest oil company, is planning to expand its downstream business as the kingdom transforms its economy to become less dependent on oil production.
“This is a historical moment for our relationship, and Houston should benefit from this visit,” said Yousef Al-Benyan, chief executive of SABIC, the Saudi Basic Industries Corp.
In a plush ballroom of the Corinthian in downtown Houston on Saturday, the crown prince looked on as the chief executives of Aramco and oil equipment makers Technip FMC and Honeywell UOP signed papers for separate agreements to study potential U.S. petrochemical plants, marking Motiva’s first steps in a plan to expand into the petrochemicals business.
As part of the transactions, Motiva Enterprises, Aramco’s Houston-based U.S. oil refining arm, will examine the use of U.K.-based Technip FMC’s mixed-feed ethylene production technologies in the U.S.
The project would use crude oil-based naphtha and U.S. ethane gas to produce to more than
2 million pounds per day of petrochemical products, said Nawaf Alardhi, strategic sourcing specialist at Aramco Services Co.
It will also study how it could use Illinois-based Honeywell UOP’s aromatics extraction and production technologies for benzene and paraxylene, which are chemical feedstocks, in the development of a potential complex along the Gulf Coast.
Alardhi said the Gulf Coast plant could produce some 2 million tons per year of the chemical feedstocks.
Motiva doesn’t expect to make a final decision on the investments until next year.
“We want to leverage collaborations and investments on both ends for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia companies to come invest in the U.S., and vice versa, as really a catalyst for our relationship to be strengthened,” said Benyan of SABIC, which is building the world’s largest ethane cracker in Corpus Christi with its partner Exxon Mobil Corp.
On Saturday, Salman visited an east Houston subdivision of Habitat for Humanity homes that was heavily flooded during Hurricane Harvey.
Volunteers from the U.S.based subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia, helped neighborhood residents clean up after the storm’s damage.
“I think when every disaster happens, it’s like instantly you want to help people,” said volunteer Ahmed Alanazi, a 22-yearold University of Houston student.
Mayor Sylvester Turner greeted Salman, thanking him for his help in Houston’s recovery process.
“There are just a number of things that they have done, that they continue to do,” Turner said. “We’re working to establish an even closer relationship.”
Aramco and Habitat for Humanity have been partners for many years, said Allison Hay of Houston Habitat for Humanity. On Labor Day weekend, right after Harvey, Aramco reached out to Habitat for Humanity and sent student volunteers to help muck and gut houses.
“Just as we thrive when this nation is doing well, we feel the pain” when the United States does, said Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister. “The Aramco footprint here in Texas runs from small to gigantic.” Hay said that the volunteers’ early call to action drastically helped their repairs and that they are quite grateful because, for many other Harvey victims, recovery was a long, slow ordeal.
“These areas were pretty devastated after the hurricane,” said volunteer Abdullah Alkassab, a 22-year-old University of Houston student. “We had time and effort to actually help.”
As the Saudi crown prince toured the city, more than 100 protesters gathered at Tranquility Park in downtown to voice their displeasure with the war in Yemen.
“This strange alliance between Saudi Arabia monarchy and the U.S. has been hurting my heart and head, especially since the 2015 bombings and devastation in Yemen,” said Cathy Courtney, a spokeswoman of Codepink Houston, a women-led organization founded in 2002 to end U.S. wars, militarism and support peace and human rights initiatives. Other participants were from the Houston Peace & Justice Center and the Muslim Congress.
Courtney said the opposition to the Yemen war by Americans reminds her of the beginning of the Vietnam War.
“It wasn’t until white boys were drafted, getting killed and coming back wounded, messed up, addicted, that the anti-war movement grew and garnered majority of public opinion to oppose the war,” Courtney said.
Autumn Rendall and Andrea Fernández Velázquez contributed to this report.