Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) is set to award the front-end engineering and design (feed) and project management consultancy (PMC) contract for its planned $6bn phosphates mining city by the end of April.

The city, which will be constructed at Waad al-Shamal in the north of the kingdom, is being planned so Maaden can fully utilise the phosphates from its Al-Khabra mine.

“The engineering consultancies have met Maaden for clarification talks and the evaluations are moving quickly,” says a source familiar with the project. “A decision is expected by the end of April.”

The companies who submitted bids for the project include:

• Fluor (US)
• Jacobs Engineering (US)
• KBR (US)
• SNC Lavalin (Canada)
• Technip (France)
• Worley Parsons (Australia)

The scope of works for the city will include a mining component, as well as eight different processing plants and a utilities and offsites package. The winning company for the feed and PMC will be carrying out work for about $4bn-worth of the total budget.

The phosphate produced at Al-Khabra is low in heavy metal content and thus ideal to be used for food production, as well as fertiliser and animal feed. The measured reserves of the Al-Khabra deposit are believed to stand at 236 million tonnes.

Maaden already has a phosphate mine in operation at Al-Jalamid in the northeast of Saudi Arabia.