Sadara Chemical Company, the joint venture of Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) and Dow Chemical, has awarded a four-year contract for engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services at Saudi Arabia's Jubail Industrial City II to Jacobs Engineering of the US.

With a total investment sum of $20 billion Jubail is being billed as the world's largest chemical complex to ever be constructed in a single phase. It will be home to 26 world-scale manufacturing plants with altogether 3 million t/y of capacity.

The vast site, which Sadara claims will "transform the chemicals landscape of the Kingdom," will supply a wide range of upstream and downstream products, including many not previously produced in Saudi Arabia. These will include the country's first isocyanate and polyol plants, whose output will be used in polyurethanes production.

Under the terms of the contract, for which no value has been disclosed, the US engineering group said it will provide both In-Kingdom and Out-of-Kingdom EPCM services to Sadara. The In-Kingdom input will be delivered from Jacobs' local operations in Saudi Arabia with support from its extensive global network.