Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), a government corporation has engaged ACCIONA Agua to build the Al Khobar desalination plant, in Khobar, on the country's east coast, about 400 kilometres from Riyadh. This EPC contract, plus a one-year warranty, is SWCC's first Design&Build project with a Spanish company.

The facility is expected to be completed in two years and will have a capacity of   210,000 m³ per day, making it one of the largest in Saudi Arabia. The plant will also supply water to Aramco, the world's largest oil company.

ACCIONA Agua has experience in the water treatment business in Saudi Arabia since in 2012 it was awarded the contract to design, build and commission the Al Jubail RO4 seawater desalination plant for Marafiq along with SBG-PCMC, which serves both the city and the industrial complex in the country's Eastern Province, on the Arab Sea coast.

'I think ACCIONA Agua was selected as the most favourable contractor by SWCC  because of the highly efficient design, which enabled us to offer not only a very  competitive price for EPC but to optimize the OPEX and  the Specific Power Consumption, not to mention our proven track record worldwide and in the GCC. This Project will be our sixth seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in the Gulf. Working with SWCC is a major leap for ACCIONA Agua since SWCC is the largest desalination company in the world. In the future, we expect to offer our high-end solutions to SWCC and to other clients in the region,' said Julio de la Rosa, Head of Business Development for ACCIONA Agua in the Middle East.

“It is a great honour to work for the SWCC. We thank SWCC for this new project award. This remarkable Project for ACCIONA Agua in the Gulf is a strategic milestone for our Company. It shows our technical capabilities as well as our competitive cost structure. ACCIONA has a magnificent team with a solid record of delivering sustainable growth in the Gulf” said Jesús Sancho, Middle East Managing Director for ACCIONA Infrastructure.