A joint venture of Italy’s Salini Impregilo and Spain’s Abengoa has signed an initial agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power for a $255m deal to build a 250,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) desalination plant at Shuaiba on the western coast of Saudi Arabia.

MEED reported on 29 March that state desalination company Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) had selected a consortium led by local developer Acwa Power for the second-phase desalination expansion of the Shuaiba 3 independent water and power project (IWPP) in Saudi Arabia. The Salini Impregilo, through its Fisia Italimpianti subsidiary, and Abengoa joint venture have signed a limited notice to proceed (LNTP) with Acwa Power, with the aim of signing a full notice to proceed by July 2017.

The joint venture is aiming to hand over the plant by May 2019.

The project will involve building a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination facility, which will have a capacity of about 250,000 cm/d. US/Indian Synergy Consulting is the financial and lead adviser to SWCC for the project.

The original Shuaiba 3 IWPP and Shuaiba 3 IWPP first-phase desalination expansion were commissioned in 2009, with the first expansion project integrating RO technology into the development.

The Shuaiba 3 IWPP was developed by a consortium of Acwa Power and Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Malakoff.

SWCC is increasing the role of private investment in the desalination sector as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030. It is also preparing to privatise existing assets. SWCC forecasts it needs to increase the current desalination capacity of 5.1 million cm/d to 7.3 million cm/d by 2020 to meet growing demand.