Spain’s Abengoa has been awarded an estimated $353m contract to build a new desalination and irrigation plant in the Agadir region of Morocco.

The new project will have a capacity of 275,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d). The contract also provides a provision for a possible future expansion of the project up to 450,000 cm/d.

The project will involve expanding the desalination and irrigation capacities of a plant, currently under development by Abengoa for the Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE), to 150,000 cm/d and 125,000 cm/d respectively. The second part of the project will involve building an irrigation network for Ministry of Agriculture, Sea Fisheries and Rural Development.

The project may be developed to run on solar and wind power, according to a statement from Abengoa. The Spanish company will undertake operations and maintenance of the plant for a period of 27 years following the construction of the plant. The project will be financed by Abengoa and local equity fund InfraMaroc.

The Agadir plant will be the largest desalination plant in Morocco when completed. In May 2014, ONEE awarded a contract to Spain’s Abengoa and InfraMaroc, a subsidiary of local CDG Capital, a design, build, operate, transfer (DBOT) contract for the project. Construction work on the plant started in March 2015.