Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC) has announced that a consortium led by Acwa  Power, a leading Saudi developer of power and desalination projects, - with its consortium partners Haji Abdullah Alireza & Co (HAACO) and Al Moayyed Contracting Group (AMCG) - has emerged as the preferred bidder for the Rabigh 4 Independent Water Project (IWP) with a total capacity of 600,000 cu m/day.

 

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.

 

While SWPC named the consortium led by Acwa Power as the preferred bidder for its attractive levelized cost of SR1.7162 per cu m, it put the consortium of Spanish infrastructure major Acciona Agua and Saudi group Ajlan & Bros in the reserved bidder list for its levelized cost of SR2.0386 per cu m. 

 

TradeArabia had earlier reported that 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 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 

 

According to SWPC, the winning developer/developer consortium will be responsible for the  development, financing, procurement, implementation and operation and maintenance of Rabigh4 project. 

 

Through a special purpose vehicle, it will develop the project and sell the entire capacity and output to SWPC under a 25-year concession pursuant to a Water Purchase Agreement.

 

For the project, SWPC’s professional advisors were KPMG Professional Services (lead and financial advisor); Eversheds Sutherland (International) as legal advisor and WSP as technical advisor.-

TradeArabia News Service