Maaden awarded first EPC contract for Ammonia plant
The Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) has awarded the first engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract of its giant Phosphates City Project to the South Korean engineering company Daelim Industrial.
This first EPC contract is part of the $6 to $7 billion capital expenditure fertilizer project to be developed by the Saudi Arabia out of the Al-Khabra basin at Waad al-Shamal in the north of the Kingdom close to the borders with Syria and Jordan.
Because of its location this Phosphate City project may also be named Al-Khabra Project or Waad Al-Shamal project after the names of the basin of the location.
If the phosphate resource lies in mines at the utmost north of the country, it will be exported for a part of it through the Port of Ras al-Khair on the Persian Gulf.
The mining, transportation, transformation of the phosphate into fertilizer ready to export have required Maaden to break down the whole Phosphate City Project into upstream and downstream packages.
In addition the project supposes the construction of a railway transportation line to connect Al-Khabra to Ras al-Khair.
At Al-Khabra, 40 kilometers northeast of Turaif, Maaden will concentrate the upstream EPC packages to include:
- Power Plant
- Mining operations
- Eight bulk processing units
- Offsites and Utilities
This upstream part of the project should have a capacity of 16 millions tonnes per year (t/y)
Jacobs completed FEED, Bechtel and Fluor won PMC
From the front end engineering and design (FEED) performed by Jacobs Engineering and its local partner Zamel & Turbag Consulting Engineers (ZATE), Maaden estimated the costs of these upstream packages to $4 billion capital expenditure.
Then Maaden will centralize the downstream EPC packages in the Port of Ras al-Khair covering the:
- Ammonia plant
- Animal feed production unit
- Storage and export facilities
- Housing, schools and commercial centers
- Supporting infrastructures and services
From the FEED work completed by Bechtel, Maaden could allocate $2 to $3 billion capital expenditure to build the downstream part of the Phosphate City Project.
Because of the size and complexity of the entire Phosphate City project, Maaden selected engineering services companies to provide project management consultancy.
In November 2012, Maaden appointed:
- Bechtel for the downstream part of the project located in Ras Al-Khair
- Fluor for the upstream portion of the project related to the mining activities in Al-Khabra.
Maaden awards Ammonia EPC to Daelim Industrial
In July 2013, Maaden awarded the first EPC contract to Daelim Industrial for an amount of $825 million to build the ammonia plant at Ras al-Khair.
The Ras al-Khair Ammonia Plant should have a capacity of 1.1 million t/y.
Then Maaden should award the following EPC contracts:
- Mono-Potassium Phosphate unit
- Tri-Acetate Phosphate unit
- Phosphoric acid (MGA) unit
- Purified phosphoric acid (PPA) for the food industry
- Sodium tri-poly-phosphate (STPP) for the production of detergent
- Di-calcium phosphate and Mono-calcium phosphate (DCP/MCP) used for animal feed
Overall the Phosphate City project should produce 3 millions t/y of fertilizer and 440,000 t/y of downstream mineral chemical derivates.
Despite about one quarter delay in the award of the EPC contracts, Maaden expects the Phosphate City Project to start operations in 2016 after this first EPC contract signed with Daelim Industrial.