The local Al-Arrab Contracting Company and China‘s Sepco III Electric Power Construction Corporation has selected Germany’s Siemens Energy to supply components for the Ras al-Zour plant in Saudi Arabia.

The contract is worth in excess of $1bn.

Siemens will supply 12 gas turbines, 10 heat-recovery steam generators, five steam turbines, and the associated auxiliary and ancillary systems for Ras al-Zour power plant.

Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) awarded contracts worth $4.2bn to build the Ras al-Zour power plant and associated desalination facility to South Korea’s Doosan and Al-Arrab/Sepco joint venture in August 2010.

The project will be built about 75 kilometres north west of Jubail. The 2,400MW plant will generate electricity for an aluminium smelting plant and around 225 million gallons a day of drinking water for Riyadh. Commercial operations are scheduled to start in early 2014.