Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) is set to appoint a front-end-engineering and design (Feed) contractor in May 2015 on the world’s largest ever oil-to-chemicals (OTC) complex in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.

With a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), the $30 billion project will refine crude oil that will be fully integrated in the transformation of petrochemical products as well as the re-cycling of all the by-products. It will also have the highest yield conversion rate compared to any such plant in the world. Although the project is still in the feasibility study stage, Sabic has said that it plans to appoint a Feed contractor soon.

In 2012, Sabic had decided to award the Feed contract to one of Aramco’s General Engineering Services Plus (GES+) companies as they had already established long term joint ventures with local companies. The GES+ contractors are Foster Wheeler, Jacobs Engineering, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), Mustang Engineering, WorleyParsons and SNC Lavalin. However, the project was then put on hold due to financial constraints.

Presently supported by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, the scheme is expected come on-stream by the end of 2020, thereby creating 100,000 jobs.

Sabic has also revealed plans to use the refined crude oil to directly feed the naphtha, fuel oil and the natural gas liquids (NGL) steam crackers. The olefin and aromatic petrochemical units will also be integrated together around these crackers to produce ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene and xylene.