The Sadara Chemical Company has received bids for the main tank farm engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) package at its $20bn petrochemicals complex in Jubail.

A diverse set of international contractors have submitted bids for the package, which has an estimated budget of around $400m.

“This is an unusual contract in that the South Koreans won’t be the favourites to win,” a source familiar with the deal says. “This [package] is not really within their realms of specialisation so you will probably see it going to a different contractor.”

Companies who have submitted bids for the contract include:

• Chicago Bridge & Iron (US)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries (Enppi) (Egypt)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Petrol Steel (Singapore/local)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Sinopec (China)
• SNC Lavalin/Larsen & Toubro (Canada/India)
• Yanbu Steel (Local)

The main tank farm will house about 62 tanks of various sizes and follows the recent submission for the EPC contract for a cryogenic tank farm that will also be built at the main Sadara site. Bids were submitted for that project, which is far smaller in size and scope, in September.

The last remaining tank farm package will be built on an 800,000 square metre site at the Jubail port. The engineering for the package will be executed by the US’ Fluor, which will then release a procurement and construction tender in early 2012 (MEED 23:9:11).

Sadara Chemical Company is the new name for the joint venture between Saudi Aramco and the US’ Dow Chemical. The complex will have a capacity of about 8 million tonnes a year (t/y) and will be constructed at Jubail Industrial City 2 in the Eastern Province of the kingdom.

A special signing ceremony between Aramco and Dow Chemical is due to take place at the Aramco headquarters at Dhahran in the Eastern Province on 8 October.