Saudi Ma'aden awards contract to Jacobs Engineering Group 

(MENAFN) Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) awarded a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group to work on a bankable feasibility study/front end engineering design (Feed) for its Umm Wu'al Phosphate Project, Trade Arabia reported.

The project is located in the Sirhan-Turaif region, which is a major phosphate resource in the north of Saudi Arabia, and is aimed at producing merchant grade phosphoric acid to the fertilizer, food and animal feed industries.

The complex will also produce phosphate intermediate products, including purified phosphoric acid, sodium tri-poly-phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate and di-calcium phosphate, to augment Ma'aden's phosphate product mix.

The project includes an open pit mine and beneficiation process, and is poised to add around 1.5 million metric tons to Ma'aden's planned annual phosphate capacity.

The project would principally utilize existing port, rail and infrastructure developments put in place by the Kingdom's government as part of a national program to develop the northern region.