KBR, a major engineering, procurement and construction company, said it has been awarded a maintenance alliance programme (MAP) contract to provide long-term maintenance services for Sadara Chemical Company, a joint venture of Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical Company.

The Sadara project is the largest chemical complex ever built in a single phase, with 26 world-scale manufacturing plants, at a total investment of approximately $20 billion.

Under the terms of the MAP contract, KBR, through its local joint venture subsidiary KBR Al Yusr, will provide preventative and predictive maintenance services (PPM) for an initial period of three years, extendable up to five years.

In addition to PPM KBR Al Yusr will support Sadara with management and execution of corrective maintenance, shutdowns and turnarounds.

On the contract win, Jay Ibrahim, KBR president, Energy Solutions – Services, said: "We are delighted to be selected for the Sadara Maintenance Alliance Program for two out of the three envelopes which were tendered."

"This award confirms Sadara's continued confidence in KBR as a full-service partner throughout the lifecycle of this project, and KBR's position as the preeminent market leader in industrial services," he stated.

KBR was originally awarded the feasibility and pre-Feed for the entire Sadara complex, and later awarded the front-end engineering design (Feed) for several major assets.

In addition, KBR provided project management oversight during the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phase of the project which peaked at about 660 specialised KBR personnel at the Jubail site.

"We are incredibly proud of the safety record already achieved on the Sadara project during the EPC phase under KBR's management, working over 80 million construction hours without a single lost time incident," remarked Ibrahim.

"The safety of our people remains a cornerstone of our culture and we intend to roll-out our Zero Harm safety programme in MAP immediately," he added.-TradeArabia News Service