Jordan to award Aqaba phosphate terminal work in March

24 February 2010

State mines company increases cost and length of contract

Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) will award the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Aqaba Rock Phosphate Terminal in Jordan by the end of March, according to a source close to the project.

The terminal is being developed by JPMC. The budget and length of the contract have also both been increased from the original estimates of $180m and 24 months respectively.

“The contract value will be over the $200m mark and is scheduled to run for 27 months,” says the source. “We are confident that the winning contractor will be announced in the first quarter [of 2010].”

The project, in the most southern part of Aqaba’s port, involves building a 4-million-tonne-a-year (t/y) rock terminal as well as truck unloading and handling facilities, storage facilities, pipe conveyors and other marine terminal facilities.

Royal Haskoning of the Netherlands is the project manager.

JPMC has mining operations at Al-Hassa and Al-Abiad, which are both about 130 kilometres south of Amman; and at Eshidiya, 125km northeast of Aqaba

The company produces about 7 million tonnes a year of rock. It exports some of the rock and uses the rest at its fertiliser complex in Aqaba, which produces 350,000 t/y of phosphoric acid, 650,000 t/y of di-ammonium phosphate and 14,000 t/y of aluminium fluoride.

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