For the EO/EG package, Japan's Toyo Engineering Corporation, Taiwan-based CTCI and South Korea's Samsung Engineering Company are understood to be among the companies invited to bid for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. The firms have been given until early August to submit technical offers, with a deadline of early September set for the submission of commercial bids.

The contract involves the construction of an EO/EG unit with nameplate capacity of just over 1 million tonnes a year (t/y), the largest of its type anywhere. Technology for the plant has been licensed from the US' Scientific Design. The tenders for the 12 other downstream process units are scheduled to be issued over the next 12 months (MEED 26:8:05).

An award is expected by the end of June for the cracker and O&U packages. Two companies and groups are competing for the cracker job, which involves a 1.3 million-t/y ethane/butane cracker. They are: the US' Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), with Japan's Chiyoda Corporation; and the US' Shaw Stone & Webster (MEED 19:11:04).

For the O&U package, the US' Fluor Corporation is understood to be frontrunner.

Comprising 13 separate downstream units, and with an estimated development cost of $8,000 million, Saudi Kayan is set to be the largest stand-alone petrochemicals complex ever built. The project gained momentum when Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) agreed to take a 35 per cent stake in Saudi Kayan (MEED 5:5:06).