South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has been awarded a $422m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build the Jeddah 4 desalination plant in Saudi Arabia.

MEED reported in October that state desalination provider Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) had received prices from two groups on 16 October, with the client having received two bids from each bidder: a standard engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) offer and a build, finance, transfer (BFT) model, which is an EPC-plus-financing option. MEED reported that Doosan had submitted the lowest bids for both models.

Doosan saw off competition from the consortium of the local Hydrochem and Saudi Services for Electromechanical (SSEM) to win the EPC contract.

The Jeddah 4 plant will have a capacity to desalinate 400,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of water, and will be located at Shuaibah, about 110 kilometres south of Jeddah.

MEED reported in September 2016 that the client was considering switching the Jeddah 4 project to an independent water project (IWP) model, after having approached prequalified bidders to submit additional proposals under a BFT structure, under which the contractor would finance the construction of the plant itself, and operate it for one year after completion.

However, a senior SWCC representative told MEED that while the client was planning to switch procurement for all future major cogeneration power and water projects and standalone desalination plants to the independent water and power project (IWPP) and IWP models respectively, the Jeddah 4 project could move ahead under an EPC or BFT model due to the urgent capacity requirement.

The Jeddah 4 scheme was originally tendered under a standard engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract in 2015, with the initial bid deadline having been set for 1 December 2015.

SWCC estimates it will need to boost its desalination capacity by 2.2 million cm/d by 2020 to meet the rapidly growing demand. Following the award of the Jeddah 4 contract, the water client is planning to move ahead with all future major water and cogeneration water and power plants under the independent water producer (IWP) and independent water & power producer (IWPP) models.

MEED recently reported that SWCC had invited consultants to submit proposals for two major desalination projects at Yanbu and Shuqaiq. 

The projects are two of eight planned independent water projects (IWPs) or independent water & power projects (IWPPs) planned to be developed in the kingdom up to 2025.