Saudi Aramco is making steady progress as it looks to select an engineering company to carry out front end engineering design (feed) work for its $20bn Yanbu Oil to Chemical facility, according to an industry source.

Technical bids for the feed contract have been opened and, over the past three weeks, officials from Aramco have held meetings with bidders to discuss details of the contract.

The bidders for the contract are:

• Fluor (US)/Jacobs (US)
• KBR (US)
• Wood Group (UK)
• Worley Parsons (Australia)

Bids for the feed and pre-feed contracts were submitted on 12 October.

It is not yet known whether Aramco will award the feed and pre-feed together or as separate contracts, according to the source.

Under existing plans, the project will convert the 235,000 barrels a day (b/d) Yanbu refinery into an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex.

The complex, due to be completed in 2025, will process 400,000 barrels a day of crude oil into 9 million tonnes a year (t/y) of chemicals and base oils.

It is the biggest petrochemicals project planned in the GCC and will be the largest of its kind in the world.

The integrated petrochemical units are likely to include a steam cracker, mixed xylene, cumene, isobutene and petroleum coke, pitch facilities and an aromatics complex.

Presently, the Yanbu refinery produces liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oil.

The hydroskimming facility has a capacity of 170,000 b/d.