China’s Sepco 3 has been awarded a contract by Saudi state desalination company Saline Water Conversion Corporation to complete the $1.5bn Yanbu 3 power and water project.

MEED reported in January that SWCC had cancelled the remainder of the contract with South Korea’s Samsung Engineering, which had been appointed as contractor for the power section of the scheme in late 2012.

The state utility has now appointed Sepco 3 to complete the project, which will have a power capacity of 2,500MW. According to sources close to the scheme, Sepco 3 saw off competition from two other companies to win the contract to complete the Yanbu scheme.

The project was due to have been completed in December 2016, but had been extended to August 2017. The project is reportedly currently 55 per cent completed. The cost of the work remaining to be completed on the project is estimated to be about $772m. No information has been released on the reasons for the cancellation of the contract with Samsung Engineering.

The Yanbu 3 plant will also have a desalination capacity of 550,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d). First water from the project is due to come online in mid-2018.