South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co Ltd said on Wednesday that it has won a $1.46 billion contract to build a freshwater generator plant in Saudi Arabia.

The company said in a statement to the Korea Stock Exhchange that it had been notified of winning the deal by Saudi Arabia's Saline Water Conversion Corp.

The plant at Ras Az Zawr will provide drinking water to the capital Riyadh and will be completed in January 2014. It will produce one million tonnes of water a day, enough for 3.5 million people.

The company said it would be the world's largest such plant in terms of value and water volume, beating the Al-Shoaiba desalination plant, also built by Doosan, which produces about 880,000 tonnes of water a day.

It said the deal would help it secure similar orders in other Middle Eastern countries including Kuwait and the UAE. - Reuters