Doosan Heavy Industries to Build World's Largest Desalination Plant

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company Limited (Changwon, South Korea) has secured a $1.46 billion contract to build a water desalination plant at Ras Al-Zawr in Saudi Arabia. The proposed facility will produce 270 million U.S. gallons of desalinated water. The desalination unit, which will be located at the same site as the proposed 2,400-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant, is likely to be completed by 2014. According to reports, Doosan Heavy Industries submitted the third-lowest quote for the desalination project.

The facility will provide water to about 3.5 million people in Riyadh and neighboring areas. Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) (Riyadh), which awarded the contract to Doosan Heavy Industries, is expected to receive 264 million U.S. gallons per day of desalination water from the project. The remainder will be supplied to the Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Riyadh). On commencing operations, the Ras Al-Zawr facility will become the largest water desalination plant in the world. Presently, the biggest facility is the 232 million-gallon-per-day Al-Shoaiba project, which was also constructed by Doosan Heavy Industries.

Saudi Arabia is proposing to develop a $5.5 billion state-of-the-art mineral city at Ras Al-Zawr. In July, a consortium led by Atkins (Sheffield, England) secured a $16 million contract to provide engineering and design services for the industrial city. The contract for the 2,400-MW power project at Ras Al-Zawr was awarded to a joint venture between Al-Arrab Contracting Company Limited (Riyadh) and SEPCO-III Electric Power Construction Corporation (QingDao, China). The power plant will operate with natural gas as the primary feedstock and extra light crude and diesel as backup fuel. Of the total power generated, 1,050 MW and 1,350 MW will be supplied to the Saudi Electric Company (Damman, Saudi Arabia) and Saudi Arabia Mining Company (SAU:1211) (Ma'aden) (Riyadh), respectively.

Experts have observed that the Ras Al-Zawr project will consolidate Doosan Heavy Industries' position in the growing water desalination market in the Middle East. Since 1990, the company has successfully executed water desalination projects with a combined capacity of 135 billion U.S. gallons. The combined value of these projects is about $5.6 billion. Presently, Doosan Heavy Industries is constructing several water desalination projects in the Middle East including:

• The Shuwaikh-2 independent water and power plant (IWPP) in Kuwait, which has a capacity of 36 million U.S. gallons. The project is likely to be commissioned in 2013.
• The 63 million-gallon reverse osmosis project at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, which will be commissioned in 2012.
• The Shuweihat-2 IWPP in the United Arab Emirates, which has a capacity of 120 million gallons per day. This project is expected to be commissioned in 2013.

In a related development, Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers approved a national development plan for the coming five years. The plan, which proposes an investment of $385 billion, has identified several infrastructure projects. This includes doubling Saudi Arabia's annual desalination capacity to 547 billion U.S. gallons from 277 billion U.S. gallons. Water desalination facilities fulfill nearly 70% of Saudi Arabia's industrial and urban water demand. The new development plan also aims to reduce agricultural water demand from 3.9 trillion U.S. gallons to 3.2 trillion U.S. gallons over a five-year period.

View Project Report - 97000247

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. IIR's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.