Black & Veatch wins Jeddah desalination consultancy deal

10 December 2014

Fourth-phase expansion will bring plant’s capacity to 400,000 cubic metres a day

Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) has awarded a contract to the US’ Black & Veatch to provide engineering and design consultancy services on the fourth-phase expansion of its Jeddah desalination plant.

The reverse osmosis (RO) plant’s capacity will be expanded by 400,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d). The contract will be tendered on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis.

Phase three of the project, which added 243,000 cm/d, was completed by a joint venture of South Korea’s Doosan and the local Water & Environment Technologies Company (Wetico). Phases 1 and 2 each have a capacity of 48,848 cm/d, and were commissioned in 1989 and 1994 respectively.

The plant replaced a 40-year-old multistage flash desalination facility and was the largest RO facility in the kingdom. It has been surpassed by the Ras al-Khair desalination plant, which has a capacity of 1.1 million cm/d.

SWCC has received main contract bids for the Haql 3, Duba 4 and Al-Wajh 4 RO desalination plants, which will all have a capacity of 9,000 cm/d. An award is also expected for the 72,800-cm/d phase two expansion of the Shoaiba multi-effect distillation desalination facility.

The firm is also in the study phase of a massive expansion of the Rabigh RO desalination plant to 600,000 cm/d.

Total water consumption in Saudi Arabia reaches about 24 billion cubic metres a year (cm/y), of which desalinated water provides about 1.3 billion cm/y, from 30 plants. However, the kingdom will require almost a billion gallons a day of additional capacity to meet demand and reserve margin needs by 2020.

A MEED Subscription...

Subscribe or upgrade your current MEED.com package to support your strategic planning with the MENA region’s best source of business information. Proceed to our online shop below to find out more about the features in each package.