Saudi Aramco and Total SA are seeking to borrow SR30 billion ($8 billion) to build an oil refinery on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast, according to two people familiar with the matter. The two companies are raising the 16-year loans in the name of Saudi Aramco Total Refining & Petrochemical Co., said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private. Calyon, the investment banking unit of Credit Agricole SA, is advising the venture, the sources said. The joint venture wants to borrow $3.5 billion from international lenders, $1.5 billion from Saudi banks and about $2 billion from Saudi government funds, the sources said. A further $1 billion will be raised from lenders including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. A spokesman for Paris-based Total, Europe's third-biggest oil company, declined to comment on the financing. Spokesmen for Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest state-owned oil company, also declined to comment. The 400,000 barrels-a-day Jubail Export Refinery will be fully operational by the second half of 2013, Saudi Aramco and Total said in a statement June 18. Saudi Aramco and Total each plans to retain 37.5 percent of the refinery, with 25 percent to be sold in an initial public offering, the companies said. Satorp's Jubail Export refinery will process Arabian Heavy crude and have a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day. It will also produce 700,000 metric tonnes per annum (mtpa) of paraxylene, 140,000 mtpa of benzene and 200,000 mtpa of polymer
