World’s largest desal plant 75% complete

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) announced yesterday that the world's largest desalination project in Ras Al-Khair is 75 percent complete and will start production in the third quarter of this year. The capacity of the plant is over one million cubic meters of desalinated water and 2,400MW of electricity. The total investment in the project is SR 23 billion ($ 6.1 billion). The announcement was made yesterday at a press conference in Ras Al-Khair by SWCC Gov. Abdulrahman Al-Ibrahim. "The project has been completed 75 percent so far and will start production in the third quarter of this year. Electricity production will start in the third quarter and water production at the end of the year," said Al-Ibrahim. He said the SWCC's Jubail plants cover the electricity needs of Al-Maaden Company; and have also provided electricity to the factories of Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) since last December. "The SWCC signed an agreement with the SEC to supply Al-Maaden factories in the summer season with 450MW," said Al-Ibrahim. He said he had a meeting with the SEC and Aramco to identify specific projects in the Kingdom that needs water and electricity. "During the meeting we discussed the upcoming plans. The first project will be in Jubail 3, which will supply 1.5 million cubic meters of water and 3,000MW of electricity." "We are concerned about consuming fuel in stations. However, we are planning to raise the production of these stations by 50 percent to meet this percentage of fuel consumption," said Al-Ibrahim. Answering a question, Al-Ibrahim said the Kingdom has a strategic plan to rehabilitate outdated stations with modern technology that will reduce fuel consumption and produce larger quantities of water. "Jeddah 2 is an example of this. It has been renovated to produce between 40,000 and 240,000 cubic meters." Al-Ibrahim said there would be electricity production of up to 416MW at the beginning of the third quarter of this year and 830MW by the end of the year. Water production will begin from the reverse osmosis unit by the end of this year, with a supply of 150,000 cubic meters. Regarding Saudization, Al-Ibrahim said the project would generate 1,300 jobs, which includes 200 Saudi engineers, technicians and administrators. The Ras Al-Khair plant will supply Maaden factories with 25,000 cubic meters of desalinated water and 1,350MW of electricity. It will supply Riyadh and the central region cities with 900,000 cubic meters of desalinated water, and cities north of the Eastern Province including Al-Nuairiya, Hafr Al-Baten, Al-Qarya, Al-Olaya, Al-Saeera and Al-Qasuma with 100,000 cubic meters of desalinated water by 2014. It will supply the SEC with 1,050MW of electricity. Arab News