Utilities contract let for Yanbu refinery

Uchenna Izundu
OGJ International Editor

LONDON, Aug. 8 – ConocoPhillips and Saudi Aramco have let an engineering and procurement services contract to KBR to prepare a utilities, interconnecting systems, and pipe racks package for their planned 400,000 b/d export refinery in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. The value of the deal was undisclosed.

KBR said this award was an extension of its current project management contract with ConocoPhillips and Saudi Aramco and follows its work on the front-end engineering and design services for the refinery, which is to cost an estimated $12 billion and start up in 2014.

Twenty-nine companies are prequalified for the six largest engineering, procurement, and construction packages for the refinery. Winners are expected to be announced in the next 3 months, with all contracts scheduled to be awarded in 2010.

Last year work had been suspended on the refinery during a review by Aramco of several major upstream and downstream projects (OGJ, Nov. 17, 2008, p. 29).

Prequalified local and international contractors have received invitations to bid for early work and major Yanbu packages including a coker unit, crude facility, gasoline unit, hydrocracker, tank farm, offsite pipelines, high-voltage electrical facilities, and other infrastructure (OGJ Online, July 1, 2009).

Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].