Saudi Water Desalination Capacity Sets Global Record at 5 Million Cubic Meters a Day

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Saudi Arabia plans to build 9 water desalination plants on the Red Sea
coastal city of Jeddah, at a total cost of more than SAR 2 billion, said
Abdulrahman Alfadley, Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture.

The minister tweeted that the project to build the plants was ordered by
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The plants will have a
total capacity of 240,000 cubic meters of water per day.

The news of the plans came as Saline Water Conversion Corp (SWCC) said
it had achieved a historical record in desalination technology that
helped increase the production of desalinated water to 5 million cubic
meters per day, a global record for the desalination industry.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman thanked SWCC for the achievements, as
he paid a visit to a desalination plant in Jeddah on Wednesday.

“Increasing the production of desalinated water from 3.5 to 5 million
cubic meters per day is a great achievement for Saudi Arabia,” the crown
prince said during his tour at the plant.

In 2011, the volume of water supplied by the country's 27 desalination
plants in 17 locations was 3.3 million m3/day (1.2 billion m3/year).

Alfadley said the new plants, to be completed in less than 18 months,
will boost production efficiency and cut operating costs for the SWCC, a
government corporation.

These plants “will have a significant impact on improving the quality
and scope of water services, in pursuit of the objectives of the
National Transition Program 2020,” he said.

“This year, we achieved a record with the addition of 1.4 million cubic
meters of desalinated water in 13 months, which is almost equivalent to
the construction of a new desalination plant worth SAR 13 billion,
without any additional capital costs.”

Water security is a key challenge for Saudi Arabia, which has invested
heavily in seawater desalination, making the Kingdom the world’s largest
producer of desalinated water currently.

SWCC Governor Ali bin Abdul Rahman Al-Hazmi said that all stations were
working at full capacity “according to methodological and scientific
foundations” to ensure employee and equipment safety.

*Source: AETOSWire

Contacts

The Center for International Communication, Ministry of Culture and
Information, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Essam
Al-Ghalib, +966595455467
[email protected]