Construction work on the $20bn Sadara petrochemicals project in Saudi Arabia is 40 per cent complete, MEED’s Project & Infrastructure Finance Conference has been told.

Speaking at the MEED event in Manama, Bahrain on 4 February, Luciano Polo, chief financial officer, Sadara Chemical Company, said construction on the scheme was 40 per cent complete, while engineering [design] was finished and procurement 85 per cent complete.

Saudi Aramco and the US’ Dow Chemical finalised funding for the Sadara Chemical complex in June 2013, after six years of planning. It was the Middle East’s biggest project financing deal to date and will result in the construction of the largest single-phase integrated chemicals facility ever built.

Sadara Chemical Company will have a capacity of about 8 million tonnes a year (t/y) and be constructed at Jubail Industrial City 2 in the Eastern Province of the kingdom.

The complex will produce several speciality chemicals aimed at pushing Saudi Arabia’s petrochemicals industry further downstream.