Saudi Arabia’s desalination company Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) is planning to issue tender documents for the planned 600,000 cubic metre a day (cm/d) Rabigh phase 3 desalination plant by early February 2016.

The Rabigh plant will use reverse osmosis (RO) technology.

Speaking at MEED’s Saudi Mega Projects conference in Riyadh on 10 December, engineer Saleh al-Sudais, director general of studies and design, SWCC, said that designs were being finalised and that the client was working with consultants to release tender documents for the main EPC contract “within the next two months.”

Al-Sudais said that the planned start date for the project is 1 October 2016, and that the project will take three years to complete.

The Rabigh desalination facility will service the cities of Jeddah, Mecca, Taif and surrounding villages.

Al-Sudais said that construction work on the Ras al-Khair desalination project, the largest hybrid desalination plant in the world, 1,250,000 cm/d capacity, should be completed by the end of 2016.