Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) is planning an October release for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a new petrochemicals plant at Jubail in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

South Korea’s Daelim Industrial has completed the front-end engineering and design for the plant and EPC contractors are now waiting for the tender to be released. The plant is a joint venture between Sabic and Japan’s Mitsubishi and Asahi Kasei.

“This is an interesting project and ties in with Sabic’s plans for more conversion industries in the kingdom,” says a petrochemicals source based in Saudi Arabia. “The tender will be out in October and an award should be made by the end of the first quarter of 2014.”

The scope of works includes the construction of a 200,000 tonne-a-year acrylonitrile plant alongside a 40,000 t/y sodium cyanide facility alongside utilities and offsites.

Acrylonitrile is used as a binding agent to form other products such as synthetic rubbers and polyamides. Sodium cyanide is a product used primarily in gold mining as well as to extract other precious metals.

Sabic is planning several smaller scale plants that will be used to feed conversion industries in the kingdom. They will feed specialist parks aimed at furthering job creation. Late last month Sabic, along with joint venture partner Mitsubishi Rayon, issued tenders for two new petrochemicals plants worth about $500m in Saudi Arabia.