Australia’s WorleyParsons has won a contract from Maaden, the Saudi mining firm, to provide engineering and mining services at a phosphate mines project.

Giving details, Maaden said the contract, worth $133 million, covered the phosphate mines, a chemical complex, a town site and related infrastructure at the Gulf coast industrial zone of Ras AlZour.
Maaden also said the infrastructure to be developed would also support its aluminium projects and other industrial developments in the industrial zone, reports Reuters.
Maaden plans to start exporting phosphate from its three-million-tonnes-per-year phosphate project in 2008. The project, whose total cost is estimated at $2.5 billion, also includes building the world’s largest fertiliser plant, the company said.
Saudi officials call the planned Ras Al Zour industrial zone the biggest step yet to diversify the oil-driven economy.
The plant will produce di-ammonium phosphate and will be in direct competition with Morocco’s Phosphates Board (OCP), the world’s largest phosphate producer and top fertilisers supplier.
The site will process bauxite and phosphate from mines in the northern Al Jalamid area. The state also plans a $2-billion rail link from the northern phosphate and bauxite mines to Ras Al Zour.