Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission of Jubail & Yanbu (RCJY) is planning to tender and award SR42bn ($11.2bn) of new contracts by 2020, as part of its development strategy up to 2030.

Speaking at the Royal Commission Cities event on 24 February, hosted by the Royal Commission in partnership with MEED, Ahmed al-Balawi, general manager for technical affairs at RCJY, and George Dinic, programme manager for Jubail and principal vice-president for US-based Bechtel, outlined 200 new contracts worth a total of SR42bn that are planned to be tendered and awarded in the next five years to cover development of the Jubail and Ras al-Khair Industrial cities.

Dinic said that currently 101 contracts worth a total of SR20bn were under execution. The planned projects include building, infrastructure and utilities schemes.

Al-Balawi said the projects will facilitate the expected growth of the population in Jubail Industrial City, which is forecast to almost double from the current 160,000 to 300,000 by 2030.

The new schemes will include expansion of the existing Mardumah and Mutrafieh residential areas and the construction of the new Al-Reggah residential area, which will cover a total area of 875 hectares.

Al-Balawi said one of the key building projects planned is the construction of the Jubail University College, which is planned to house 18,000 students when fully operational by 2020. Contracts for the first phase, which will provide facilities for 8,300 students, have been already awarded, but most of the deals are still to be tendered.

In addition to building and road contracts, the Commission is also set to tender a number of power and water contracts, including a major expansion of the existing centralised wastewater treatment plant from the existing 72,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) to 100,000 cm/d.