Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) and the US’ ExxonMobil Chemical have requested contractors to submit bundle prices for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts at their $2bn Elastomers joint venture project in Saudi Arabia.

The 50:50 joint venture partners are releasing tenders for the scheme over a three month period that covers February, March and April.

“Asking contractors to bundle up packages should offer savings in certain areas,” says a contracting source based in Saud Arabia. “All projects have overlap, especially when several contractors are working on site so this is a good way of overcoming that issue. If this strategy is adopted the contractor will have to be large enough to execute several packages otherwise there could be problems.”

The source added that all of the prequalified contractors are large enough as to be able to offer a bundle price and execute any work should they be successful.    

The prequalified contractors for the project include:

• CTCI Corporation (Taiwan)
• Daelim Industrial Company (South Korea)
• Foster Wheeler (US)
• GS Engineering & Construction Corporation (South Korea)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Saipem (Italy)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• SK Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Technip (France)

When completed, the facility will produce about 400,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of carbon black, rubber and thermoplastic speciality polymers. The plant will use ExxonMobil technology and the products will be sold on local and international markets.

The scheme will be built at the Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company (Kemya) complex in the Eastern Province.