KUALA LUMPUR: MMC Corp Bhd is poised to bag its next multi-billion ringgit contract, just after entering into a RM16bil memorandum of understanding with Dubai World to develop a maritime centre and property in south Johor. 

Sources expect the Malaysian utilities and infrastructure giant, in partnership with Saudi Binladin Group, to announce an agreement with a Chinese aluminium producer to build a smelter in the Middle East. 

The smelter will likely obtain its electricity supply from a power plant that is slated to be built nearby as part of a larger project. 

The unit price for the power would be set within the next few months. 

Construction of both the smelter and power plant is expected to commence in the first half of next year at a cost of some US$2bil (RM6.8bil).

MMC is partnering the Saudi Binladin Group to build Jizan Economic City (JEC) in Saudi Arabia. JEC, located 725km south of Jeddah, is envisioned to be a fully integrated and self-contained development comprising industrial and non-industrial zones on a 117 sq km site. 

JEC, the kingdom's fourth economic city, is projected to cost US$30bil to develop. MMC has said US$17bil of that amount was anticipated to be the investment cost for the various projects within the industrial zones which would be borne by different project proponents. 

The balance, it said, would be the development cost for infrastructure, commercial areas, residential areas and public amenities. 

“The new city’s industrial zone, representing more than two-thirds of the project, will accommodate a port, an aluminium smelter, a steel processing plant, an oil refinery, a copper processing plant, as well as fisheries and an agro-based industry,'' group chief executive Feizal Ali said after the announcement of the contract for JEC. 

The project includes a power and desalination plant to support the industries, which will have an eventual capacity to generate 4,000 mega watts of electricity. 

Sources said the new project was expected to be developed by a new joint-venture company to be set up by the end of the year while a preliminary feasibility is being conducted. 

The participation of the Chinese party would most likely be that of technology provider as well as providing plant requirements relating to material supplies and distribution, a source said.