Saudi $1 Billion Desalination Project is Doosan's 28th in MENA Region

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--South Korean companies continue to book large project orders in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region.

The letter of award for a $1 billion desalination project from the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) of Saudi Arabia will be Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Company Limited's (Changwon, South Korea) 28th MENA project.

Starting with the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Assir Phase1 desalination plant in Saudi Arabia in 1985, Doosan has executed 27 MENA projects. Doosan-built desalination plants now provides 5.8 million tons of freshwater daily, which is enough to meet the needs of 19 million people.

The latest contract is for SWCC's Yanbu Phase III desalination plant, which will be built with multi-stage flashing (MSF) technologies in the industrial city of Yanbu, 350 kilometers north of Jeddah, to supply fresh water to Yanbu and the nearby Medina region. The MSF process generates the fresh water from the seawater using flashing technology, which instantaneously discharges the water vapor. MSF is a facility designed to use the energy more effectively by continuously generating flashing of seawater at low steam pressure from each stage without the addition of a heat source.

The plant will deliver 550,000 tons (121 million imperial gallons), which is enough to meet the daily requirements of 1.8 million people. The EPC contract covers equipment design, manufacturing, installation and testing. Completion is scheduled for March 2016.

Doosan has won a series of desalination projects in Saudi Arabia in recent years. In 2010, the company won the contract to build the Ras Al Khair Phase I plant, the world's largest desalination plant to date, followed by the Yanbu Phase II Expansion multi-effect plate distiller (MED), featuring the world's largest MED distiller, in addition to the Marafiq Yanbu MED plant in 2011. MED secures a reliable and cost-effective supply of fresh water by using seawater distillation based on waste heat or low-pressure steam to produce high-purity water with low dissolved solids content.

Seokwon Yun, CEO of Doosan's water business group said, "Doosan was able to become the successful bidder because we have built solid trust with our client through successful execution of various projects over the years, on top of our cutting-edge technologies."

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