South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (Doosan) has won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the $1.46bn Ras al-Zour desalination plant in Saudi Arabia.

In a statement to the Korean stock exchange the company said that it had received a letter from Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) informing it of the decision.

“This is a good win for Doosan,” a source familiar with the deal says. “[Doosan] was not the favourite for this job so they will be very pleased.”  

The facility will be the largest of its type in the world and produce 1 million tonnes-a-day (t/d) of water, enough for 3.5 million people. The water will be used to supply Riyadh.

The plant will use utilise thermal desalination for 70 per cent of its output and reverse osmosis for the remaining 30 per cent. Completion is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2013.

In July Doosan signed a $2.9bn deal with the UAE to provide equipment for the country’s $20bn nuclear power plant programme. In February the company was also awarded a $330m contract to supply equipment to the Ain Sokhna thermal power plant in Egypt.