Saudi Water Partnerships Company (SWPC) has announced that a consortium led by Acwa Power, a leading developer, investor, and operator of power generation, water desalination and green hydrogen plants worldwide, has been awarded the contract to develop an independent water project at Rabigh in Makkah region which will have a production capacity of 600,000 cu m per day.

 

Its consortium partners are Haji Abdullah Alireza & Partners Company, a leading player in the management, operation and maintenance of sea water desalination plants, and Bahrain-based Almoayyed Contracting Group.

 

According to SWPC, Rabigh 4 is the eighth project in desalinated water production pipeline in partnership with the private sector, since the launch of the National Water Strategy. 

 

The project, to be located 180 km northwest of Makkah on the Red Sea coast in the Western Province, will include the desalination plant and all associated infrastructure and facilities. It is due for completion in Q4 2025, said the Saudi utility in its statement.

 

Last month, TradeArabia had reported that the consortium led by Acwa Power had emerged the preferred bidder with its attractive levelized cost of SR1.7162 per cu m beating the consortium of Spanish infrastructure major Acciona Agua and Saudi group Ajlan & Bros who had quoted SR2.0386 per cu m. 

 

A total of 39 utility project developer consortiums, including 21 Saudi firms, had expressed their interests in developing the key reverse osmosis (RO) project in Rabigh. 

 

These included Spanish infrastructure majors - GS Inima Environment, Acciona Agua, and Cobra; French utility expert Veolia and Italian group Fisia Italimpianti in addition to Hydro Industries (UK); Aquatech International (US); Marubeni (Japan); J&P (Cyprus) and VA Tech Wabag (India) as well as Acwa Power consortium, Al Bawani Water & Power as well as Marafiq.

 

However, in November last year, SWPC revealed that only three consortia had made it to the final round. These were 

 

*Acciona with consortium partner Saudi group Ajlan & Brothers Company; 

*Acwa with Haji Hussein Ali Reda and Partners Company and Almoayyed Contracting Group

*French multinational utility group Engie 

 

The project is being implemented on the BOO (Build, Own and Operate) model. 

 

The contract was signed by Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SWPC Engineer Abdulrahman bin Abdul Mohsen Al Fadhli with Acwa Consortium partners at the ministry’s headquarters in Riyadh. 

 

Lauding the project, Engineer Al Fadhli said: "Rabigh 4 project will directly serve the pilgrims, in addition to the beneficiaries in the regions of Makkah and Madinah."

 

"The project aims to improve the quality of services, in addition to raising the efficiency of spending, benefiting from the expertise of the private sector in construction, operation and management, and increasing its contribution to the development in accordance with the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030," he added.

 

Saudi Water Partnership Company CEO Engineer Khalid bin Zwaid Al Qureshi said the commercial operation will begin in the first quarter of 2026.

 

In addition to the water plant, the project scope includes developing 1.2 million cu m storage tanks as well as extension and connection to the existing power transmission substation, he added.-TradeArabia News Service