EC Harris, a leading international built asset consultancy, said it has clinched a major oil and gas contract in Saudi Arabia.

The built asset consultancy has been appointed by Atco Group’s engineering and construction division in Saudi Arabia to deliver project control services. The eight to 12 month contract could be worth in excess of $2 million.

The contract is being led by EC Harris’ oil and gas team and will involve a group of 15 people from the consultancy’s offices in Dammam.

EC Harris works mainly  in the oil & gas and petrochemicals, real estate, infrastructure, manufacturing, energy and construction sectors.

A global organisation in energy and utilities, Atco is involved in major engineering and construction projects in the Kingdom including most recently Saudi Aramco’s Khurais and Ras Tanura mega projects, and the Prince Mohammed University.

EC Harris will jointly work with Atco to enhance its delivery on these projects through the implementation of project controls, improvements in supply chain management and organisational re-design.

The consultancy will set up procedures, processes and systems, using its specialist software tool CCES an enterprise platform for estimating, cost management, payment transaction and asset management which will assist in driving efficiencies for the project execution activities.

The overall aim is to achieve greater cost certainty on the projects, minimising risk and maximising return on investment.

Stuart Arndt, partner of EC Harris, said: 'As our first major contract in Saudi, this is a significant win for us. The challenges faced by clients in the Middle East are truly unique.'

'Scale, complexity, changing stakeholder requirements and a hugely overstretched supply market often impede timely and profitable delivery of major capital projects.'

“It’s our job to minimise the risk of failure, and maximise the value that projects bring to our clients’ businesses. Our skills and expertise will make the projects more predictable in terms of costs by providing rigorous, effective and bespoke project controls and services that enable them to make smarter buying and spending decisions.”

The oil and gas team of EC Harris has seen its business grow by 80 per cent in the last 12 months since establishing operations in strategic oil and gas locations overseas.

Its international network, focused on upstream and downstream oil and gas and petrochemicals, now includes: London, Houston, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Dammam and Qatar.-TradeArabia News Service