The Power and Water Utility Company for Jubail and Yanbu (Marafiq) has selected South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction to build two desalination units at Yanbu.

The multi-effect distillation (MED) units will be constructed on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis.

In addition to building the projects, Doosan will train on-site Saudi engineers to operate the project. The facility will have a capacity of 2,300 cubic metres a hour and is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2013.

Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction has also submitted a bid to build another desalination project at Yanbu, in this instance for Saudi Electricity Company (SEC). Doosan submitted the second-lowest bid for the contract in July 2011 (MEED 26:7:11).