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Wabag confirms $317m Saudi water deal

6 September 2024

India-headquartered VA Tech Wabag has confirmed winning a contract to build a 300,000 cubic-metres-a-day (cm/d) seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant project in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.

The value of the contract for the Yanbu 5 SWRO plant is $317m, the Bombay Stock Exchange-listed company said in a statement on 6 September.

The engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract covers the design, engineering, supply, construction and commissioning of the desalination plant.

According to Wabag, the plant will operate using dual media filters followed by a two-pass reverse osmosis process and re-mineralisation to produce clean potable water, which will be further distributed by Saudi Water Authority (SWA). 

The plant is located on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, south of the Red Sea-facing Yanbu Al-Bahr, and is scheduled to be completed within 30 months of the contract award.

MEED reported in July that Wabag submitted a lower bid for the contract.

Saudi Arabia's main producer of desalinated water, SWA – formerly Saline Water Conversion Company (SWCC) – received two bids in May for the contract to build the Yanbu 5 SWRO project.

The other bidder is understood to comprise a local contractor team and an overseas-based partner.  

The bid evaluation process is ongoing for a second project, the Shuaiba 6 SWRO plant, which has a capacity of 545,000 cm/d.

Two other projects, the Jubail and Ras Al-Khair SWRO projects, are in the bidding stage. They will each have the capacity to treat 600,000 cm/d of seawater.

The four contracts are being procured using an EPC model, in contrast to the SWRO facilities being procured on a public-private partnership basis by state offtaker Saudi Water Partnership Company.

SWA is the world's largest producer of desalinated water, with a capacity of at least 6.6 million cm/d. Plants utilising older and more energy-intensive techniques such as multi-stage flash technology account for the majority of the current capacity.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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