The US' ABB Lummus Global is understood to have been awarded the design process package for the ethane cracker at the $3,000 million petrochemicals complex planned by the local/US National ChevronPhillips Company (NCP) at Jubail.

The lump-sum turnkey (LSTK) contract to build the 1.2 million-tonne-a-year cracker is expected to be tendered competitively, with requests for qualification (RFQs) scheduled to be issued to international contractors toward the end of the year.

The cracker will be the centrepiece of the complex, which will produce ethylene, hexane-1, propylene, polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene and styrene.

Parsons E&C, part of Australia's WorleyParsons, is the cracker's front-end engineering and design (FEED) contractor (MEED 9:9:05).

NCP is a 50:50 joint venture of Saudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG) and Arabian ChevronPhillips Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of the US' ChevronPhillips Chemical Company (CPC) (MEED 15:4:05).