Sadara Chemical receives bids for Jubail port tank farm

30 July 2012

The tender involves the construction of 41 tanks

Sadara Chemical Company has received bids for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the tank farm package to be built at Jubail port in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

The tender involves the construction of 41 tanks with a capacity of about 350,000 cubic metres. The facilities will act as the main storage area for the export offtake of the $20bn Sadara petrochemicals complex being built at Jubail and will be built adjacent to the planned $450m expansion of the Sabic Terminal Services Company (Sabtank). The bid deadline was 3pm in Saudi Arabia on July 30.

“The bids have now gone in and the contractors will probably have a wait of about two months before they find out who has won the bid,” says a source familiar with the project. “This is a very significant project for tank farm specialists.”

A decision is expected on the winning bidder by the end of September. MEED reported in April that Sadara was initially thinking of building the tanks in conjunction with Sabtank, but due to timescale issues, both parties decided against it.  

Sabtank is currently evaluating the bids for its own expansion project. The main scope of the Sabtank is similar to Sadara Chemical’s plans and will involve the construction of 37 storage tanks with a total capacity of 330,000 cubic metres. The project cost is believed to be higher than Sadara Chemical’s however, because of the additional facilities being built that both tank farms will share. These include a handling unit, berth facilities, substation, firefighting facilities and truck loading and unloading facilities.

A source has also confirmed that the US’ CB&I has pulled out of the bidding process, which leaves five contractors. A decision on Sabtank is expected by late August.

The contractors bidding for the Sabtank scheme are:

  • China National Chemical Corporation (China)
  • Hanwha Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
  • Petrol Steel (local/Singapore)
  • Sinopec (China)
  • Wison Engineering (China)

Despite the Sabtank expansion and the Sadara Chemical tank farm being built independently, a Saudi petrochemicals source says that eventually the facilities could still be merged and run as one company.

The Sadara Chemical Company is a 50:50 joint venture between Saudi Aramco and the US’ Dow Chemical. Sabtank is a 90:10 joint venture between Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) and Dutch port operator Vopak.

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