A consortium of the Netherlands’ Royal Haskoning and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction has been awarded a five-month front-end engineering and design (feed) contract for a major maritime yard in the Ras al-Khair region of Saudi Arabia.

The facility is designed to become the largest maritime yard in the world, a statement by Royal Haskoning said.

It will comprise facilities for large shipbuilding, large ship repair, offshore rigs fabrication and offshore support vessel repair.

The range of facilities to be built includes seven fully-equipped dry docks, two basins and five piers, a ship lift system, workshops, warehouses, utility services areas, as well as office buildings, living quarters, and recreational facilities for more than 10,000 workers.

The contract will engage the specialist shipyard consultancy experience of Royal Haskoning and Hyundai E&C’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) expertise.

“This project combines four different yards into a single development, creating significant opportunities for economies of scale and enhancing the country’s economic development,” said Adrian Arnold, project director at Royal Haskoning.

The Dutch firm undertook the initial market study for the maritime yard in 2014. The feed development work is now scheduled to take five months.

In July, Royal Haskoning won a contract to provide the masterplanning and consulting engineering services for a 634,000-square-metre logistics park in Jeddah.