Saudi Aramco's joint venture oil refinery with France's Total should be online by early 2013, an Aramco executive said on Monday.

'Yes definitely in 2012, beginning 2013, the refinery will be up and running,' Samir Al-Tubayyeb, chairman of Saudi Aramco Total Refining Company, told Reuters.

Tubayyeb, speaking on the sidelines of an energy conference in Dubai, said the cost of the 400,000 barrels per day plant should not exceed $10 billion.

Top oil exporter Saudi Aramco has sent bidders back to the drawing table on several mega-projects to expand energy capacity as it looks to take advantage of the slide in prices for commodities and to drive down costs.

Tubayyeb told reporters later that he expected all the bids on the project to come in by the end of the month. The two companies delayed the bidding round for the packages from November while the rest were due by April 27.

'We should award the remaining packages sooner than before the end of the year,' he said. 'But again it depends on the price. I don't know about shelved but if the price is not right we will have to reconsider.' Tubayyeb reiterated the 'importance' of the refinery joint venture project.

'We have a good project, and you have got the world's heavyweight in terms of oil supply,' he said. 'We are in this business for the long term, the best investments in the world are made in difficult times.'

The original estimated cost of the refinery was pegged as high as $12 billion when commodity prices were near their peak last year.-Reuters