Maaden to award remaining Waad Al-Shamal contracts by late Sept.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) is expected to award the two remaining technical packages for its SAR 26.25 billion phosphates city at Waad al-Shamal, said MEED.

The packages were originally one large contract, but have been split after the prices submitted in 2013 were deemed to be too high. They are now being tendered on an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) basis and a decision is expected by late September, MEED added.

The contracts being tendered are Package 5a (Purified phosphoric acid and sodium triphosphate) and Package 5b (Monocalcium phosphate and dicalcium phosphate).

The bidders for the scheme include Italy’s Fata Group, South Korea’s Hanwha Engineering & Construction, US Jacobs Engineering and Australia’s WorleyParsons.

The budget is expected to be around USD 400 million per package, and work is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The mining city is being built so Maaden can fully utilise the phosphates from its Al-Khabra mine.

The phosphates city project is 60 percent owned by Maaden, while Mosaic and Sabic own 25 percent and 15 percent stakes respectively.