Contract award

SABIC Agri-Nutrients awards 3.465 billion dollar Jubail EPC contract to Samsung E&A

By Staff Writer  |  12-09-2026

SABIC Agri-Nutrients Company has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract worth approximately 3.465 billion US dollars to Samsung E&A Co., Ltd for an integrated ammonia and urea complex in Jubail Industrial City. The award follows the board's final investment decision for the company's seventh project, taken on 9 September 2026 and disclosed to the Saudi Exchange at 8.12am on 10 September 2026. Construction is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2026 and commercial production in the fourth quarter of 2030.

What is being built

The disclosure describes the project as one integrated industrial complex with three production elements and one emissions element. The first is an ammonia plant with a production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year. The second is a pair of urea plants with a combined production capacity of 2.6 million tonnes a year. The third is a post-combustion carbon capture unit, which the company presents as the means of reducing the emissions intensity of the complex and of the products it makes.

The urea figure is the one the company uses to describe the scale of the step. Its current urea capacity is stated as 4.8 million tonnes a year and the project is expected to take it to 7.4 million tonnes a year, an increase of approximately 54 per cent on current production levels. The company places the project among the main pillars of its 2040 strategy, which it links to the agricultural nutrients export market and to global food security.

The contract and the programme

The EPC contract has been awarded at a total cost of approximately 3.465 billion US dollars. The disclosure gives no split between engineering, procurement and construction, no currency conversion into riyals and no statement of the contract form. It does give the programme in four steps: construction activities are expected to commence during the fourth quarter of 2026; commissioning is expected during the third quarter of 2030 and is expected to last four months; commercial production and project completion are expected during the fourth quarter of 2030.

The contractor is Samsung E&A Co., Ltd. The disclosure names it and nothing more: no consortium partner, no licensor for the ammonia or urea technology and no engineering subcontractor. The company states that there are no related parties to the transaction.

On funding, the company says it will assess various financing options for the project, including financing through loans and through its own cash flows. It expects the financial impact of the project to be reflected in its results only after completion and the start of commercial operations, which on the stated programme means from the fourth quarter of 2030.

The award is the latest in a sequence of exchange disclosures rather than a single announcement. The previous step, disclosed on 26 March 2026, was the allocation of gas feedstock by the Ministry of Energy for a conventional ammonia and urea project in Saudi Arabia. The 10 September disclosure is filed as the latest development on that same event and adds the final investment decision, the EPC award, the contractor, the value and the programme.

The complex is to be built in Jubail Industrial City. The disclosure does not give a plot, a plant footprint or a workforce figure for construction, and it does not say whether any early works or site preparation have begun ahead of the fourth-quarter start.

What the record does not say

No named executive is quoted in the disclosure, so there is no statement to report beyond the company's own filed wording. The value is given as approximate and in US dollars; it should not be treated as a fixed contract sum until the company says otherwise. The disclosure does not identify the carbon capture technology or its capacity, the source of the additional feedstock beyond the March allocation, or the destination markets for the added urea volume. The company says it will announce any material developments relating to the project in accordance with the applicable rules, which is the trigger for any update to this record.