Spain’s Acciona on 22 December confirmed its award, together with local partner Al-Rashid Trading & Contracting, of a 400,000 m3/day reverse osmosis desalination plant in Jazan province on the Saudi Red Sea coast for 2023 completion.

Acciona says the award for the new Shuqaiq-1 plant is worth $384mn and that the project scope “includes the marine works, the civil works on the plant, the supply and installation of electromechanical and electrical equipment, start-up and pre- and post-treatment systems the start up and commissioning.”

The award was one of two made last week by Saudi state desalination plant operator SWCC to replace two existing multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) desalination plants on the Red Sea coast with more efficient and larger reverse osmosis (RO) plants (MEES, 18 December).

SWCC last week said that the two plants combined would have 1mn m³/d capacity. Acciona's latest announcement implies that the second award made to Saudi firm Advanced Water Technology with local contractor Rawafid Industrial is for a 600,000 m³/day plant at Shoaiba in Mecca province.

The MSF plants to be replaced (223,000 m3/d at Shoaiba and 94,000 m3/d at Shuqaiq) are due to be shut down in 2022 under a state water utility SWPC plan to shut down 21 mainly aging plants with combined capacity of 2.5mn m3/d between now and the end of 2023.

Under its 2020-26 development plan, SWPC will replace much of SWCC’s state-owned capacity with new plants developed in public-private partnerships, increasing its own contracted capacity from 1.5mn m3/d in four independent water producer (IWP) plants to 8.5mn m3/d (MEES, 25 September).

Tables included SWCC’s Latest Desalination Awards

‘000 m³/d Lead Firm Partner
Shoaiba 600 Advanced Rawafid
Shuqaiq 400 Acciona Al-Rashid