STATE oil giant Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical have awarded multi-million-dollar contracts for the estimated $7-billion Rabigh II petrochemical expansion project in Saudi Arabia.

South Korea’s GS Engineering and Construction said it has won a $1.8-billion deal, for completion in 2015, while Italy’s Saipem has signed a turnkey EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract for the naphtha and aromatics package (RP 2) of the project in Rabigh, north of Jeddah.

Other deals involving Britain’s Petrofac and Japan’s JGC are close to being signed, sources said, but a Sumitomo spokeswoman declined to comment on contracts yet to be announced. Under the Rabigh II expansion programme, an existing ethane cracker will be expanded and a new aromatics complex will be built using around three million tonnes per year of naphtha to make higher-value petrochemical products. Operations are planned to start in the first half of 2016.
JGC is to expand the existing ethane cracker at the complex.