Leading US engineering company Bechtel has signed a five-year contract extension with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu to continue its longstanding management services work at Jubail and Ras Al Khair industrial cities.

Bechtel said the project, located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, was the world’s largest single industrial development project, and is unique as a city was built from the sand up, requiring vast resources and logistical planning on an unprecedented scale.

The company has worked with the Royal Commission on the Jubail project since it began in the mid-1970s. The industrial city spans 1,016 sq km and provides petrochemical and other industrial complexes, port facilities, telecommunications, and a highway system.

Over the next five years, Bechtel’s work will focus on providing residential accommodation and education facilities such as a 18,000-student ‘greenfield’ university as well as roads, bridges, medical centres, and power, water and waste facilities, said a top Bechtel official.