Saudi Aramco has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with France’s Total to build a petrochemical complex in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

The two oil giants will invest $9bn into the project. The complex will be an integrated with the Saudi Aramco Total Refining & Petrochemical Company (Satorp) facility in Jubail, a joint venture in which Aramco owns 62.5 per cent and Total 37.5 per cent.

The MoU was signed during the official visit of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Paris.

The upcoming complex will be located next to the Satorp refinery. It will comprise a mixed feed steam cracker with the capacity to produce 1.5 million tonnes annually (mta) of ethylene, plus other petrochemical producing units, and will require an investment of around $5bn.

Both partners plan to start the front-end engineering and design of the project in the third quarter of 2018.

Total said the project will also produce more than 2.7 mta of high value chemicals.

According to regional projects tracker MEED Projects, the plant will also supply 500,000 mta of propylene. The feedstock would come from Satorp, and from Sadara, a joint venture between Aramco and Dow Chemical, also in Jubail.