Saudi Arabia invites interest for Jubail 3 water, power project

Saudi Arabia’s Water & Electricity Company (WEC) has invited companies to submit expressions of interest (EOI) for the contract to develop the Jubail 3 independent water and power project (IWPP), according to a tender posted on its website.

The project will be developed under a 25-year concession agreement, and the selected developer will sign a power and water purchase agreement (PWPA) with WEC, the tender document said.

The WEC will be the offtaker for all of the produced power and desalinated water and its obligations under the PWPA will be supported by a credit support agreement from the Saudi government.

The Jubail 3 project has a planned power generation capacity of 3,000 megawatt and a desalination capacity of 1.17 billion cubic meters a day.

The desalination component will be a hybrid system, with 60 percent of the capacity to be produced through reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology and the remaining 40 percent to be produced through a thermal desalination process.

The lead and financial adviser for the IWP is Saudi Arabia-based Banque Saudi Fransi.

Germany’s Fichtner Engineering and Consulting has been appointed as the technical adviser, the UK’s DLA Piper as legal adviser and the UK’s Alderbrook as co-financial adviser.