Saudi Aramco and Japan-based Sumitomo Chemical are still evaluating the bids for the planned $5bn phase II expansion for the PetroRabigh refinery and petrochemicals complex on the west coast of Saudi Arabia.

Bids for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for the various packages at the scheme were submitted in October, but no decision has yet been made regarding the winning bidders.  

“There is still no news regarding these bids,” says a contracting source based in Saudi Arabia. “We have been told a decision will be made by the end of January, but I would not be surprised if it was February.”

The packages for PetroRabigh:

• Ethylene cracker: De-bottlenecking
• Aromatics Complex
• Cumene, Phenol and Cyclohexanone
• Caprolactam and Nylon-6
• EVA/LDPE, EPR, TPO and PMMA
• MTBE/IB, MMA and Metathesis
• Acrylic Acid and SAP

The delay in the awarding of the EPC packages will affect the original timeline set by the joint venture partners for the scheme.

In 2011, MEED reported that major financial institutions did not expect the project to achieve financial close until 2013 (MEED 13:5:11). Banking experts also said that it was possible that some sort of interim financing agreement would be put in place that would allow work to start.

However, if the delay in announcing the winning bidders of the PetroRabigh packages continues, allowing for initial engineering work may not now actually start on-site until January 2013.

“It will be close, but if the winning contractors are announced in the next two months they should be able to start working on-site by the third quarter of 2012,” says a source familiar with the project. “This would still leave a few months where interim financing would be required.”

Bidders for the packages include:

• CTCI (Taiwan)
• Daelim Industrial (South Korea)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Sinopec Engineering (China)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Tecnicas Reunidas (Spain)

Aramco and Sumitomo plan to process an additional 30 million cubic feet a year of ethane and 3 million tonnes a year (t/y) of naphtha after the expansion.

They will achieve this by expanding the existing ethane cracker and aromatics unit, which processes naphtha at the facility.

The first phase of the project started production in November 2009 and produces more than 20 million-t/y of petroleum and petrochemicals products.

Japan’s JGC Corporation is carrying out the front-end engineering and design (feed).