Saudi Aramco and the US’ Dow Chemical are close to awarding four packages worth a total of about $1bn to South Korea’s Daelim Industrial at their $20bn joint venture in Jubail in Saudi Arabia.

The four process packages have been bundled together and Daelim will carry out the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) for all of them at its petrochemicals complex in the Eastern Province.

“[Daelim] is on a roll at the moment,” says a source familiar with the project. “The top bids were very close with some people saying they were as close as 3 per cent.”

The four packages are:

• PMDI and TDI isocyanates
• Dinitrotoluene nitric acid and sulphuric acid
• MNB
• Aniline and formalin units

MEED recently announced that Daelim had also been awarded the EPC contract for the mixed-feed cracker package at the complex in a deal worth about $920m (MEED 22:7:11).

The mixed-feed cracker will be built using ethane and naphtha and produce 1.2 million tonnes a year (t/y) of ethylene and 400,000 t/y of propylene.

Aramco and Dow are 50:50 partners in the project the name of which was recently changed to Sadara Chemical Company. It was also known as the Ras Tanura Integrated Project. The complex will produce over 3 million tonnes of chemicals a year when it starts full production in 2015-16.