Important oil and gas agreements were signed between Saudi and UK companies during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s trip to the UK in early March, his first official tour since being named heir to the Saudi throne in June 2017.

Saudi Aramco and the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) awarded the front-end engineering and design (feed) and project management consultancy (PMC) contract for their joint crude oil to chemicals project in the kingdom to the UK-based engineering firm Wood Group.

Wood Group completed the acquisition of fellow British engineering firm Amec Foster Wheeler in October last year, making it well-positioned to clinch oil and gas deals in the Middle East.

Wood will provide the Feed and project management services for developing the $20bn complex which is expected to process 400,000 barrels per day and 9 million tonnes of chemicals and base oils annually.

The scope of the contract primarily includes finalising the project scope, selection of technology providers, updating project economics and performing the front-end engineering design.

The contract with Wood Group is expected to continue through to the start of operations of the COTC in 2025, Aramco has said.

Wood overcame competition from the other bids for the PMC contract, which were KBR (US), Fluor (US), Jacobs Engineering (US) and WorleyParsons (Australia).

Saudi Aramco also made four other agreements with UK entities during the Crown Prince’s trip, in the form of memorandums of understanding (MoU). Aramco signed an MoU with international oil company Royal Dutch Shell to jointly pursue opportunities in the natural gas sector, including upstream development, liquefaction projects and other aspects of the gas value chain.

The Saudi state oil giant signed an MoU with Imperial College London, to seek to establish joint projects for developing technologies in chemical engineering, petroleum and geoscience, mechanical engineering and advanced materials. Another MoU was signed with The Welding Institute, a Cambridge-based research and technology institution, for engineering cooperation.

The only non-energy sector MoU signed by Aramco was with London-based strategic thinktank Chatham House, details of which were not stated.

A couple of other commercial deals were also awarded by Aramco, one of which was a drilling services contract to Aberdeen-based Downhole Products.