Switzerland’s Buhler Technology Group has been awarded two contracts worth a combined total of $106m by Saudi Arabia’s Grain Silos & Flour Mills Organisation (GSFMO).

Buhler will construct a grain processing facility in Mecca with a capacity of 1,200 tonnes-a-day

The first contract will see Buhler construct a grain processing facility in Mecca with a capacity of 1,200 tonnes-a-day (t/d). The processing facility is the larger of the two contracts and worth $86.5m.

The second contract involves the modernisation of an existing 450-t/d plant in Jeddah. The value of this project is $20.5m. Work is due to start within the next month and the contracts should take about 32 months to execute.

“Buhler has executed many contracts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for GSFMO as well as in other parts of the Middle East,” a spokeswoman for the company says. “This project requires a number of various skills and capacities and encompasses staff from various countries.”

For the project in Mecca only Muslim workers will be able to work on the project due to strict regulations regarding non-Muslims entering the holy city.

The contracts are related to Saudi Arabia’s future plans to privitise its grain mills and the state-owned GSFMO has been charged with increasing grain capacity in the kingdom to meet growing demand.