Acciona confirms Jubail 3B IWP contract

Spain’s Acciona has confirmed it has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Jubail 3B independent water producer (IWP) project in Saudi Arabia

Spain’s Acciona has confirmed it has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Jubail 3B independent water producer (IWP) project in Saudi Arabia.

Acciona confirmed it had been awarded a €337m ($400m) contract to provide for the Jubail 3B IWP. Acciona will carry out the EPC work in consortium with China’s Sepco 3.

Energy & Utilities reported in June that project agreements for the 570,000 cubic metre a day (cm/d) Jubail 3B IWP plant had been signed with a developer consortium of France’s Engie and local firms Nesma and Alajlan.

The project will be developed under a concession period of 25 years, with commercial operations for the plant scheduled in the first quarter of 2024.

In April, the consortium was selected as preferred bidder by the Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC) with a levelised water cost of SR1.59/cubic metre (cm).

The Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC) had received bids from four groups for the Jubail 3B IWP project.

The groups which submitted bids are (in alphabetical order):

• Aqualia (Spain), HAACO (local), Alfanar (local)
• Engie (France), Nesma (local), Alajlan (local)
• Utico (UAE)
• Veolia (France), Aljomaih (local), AlKifah (local)

The Jubail 3B IWP will serve Riyadh and Qassim with potable water. The scheme will include storage tanks with one day’s production capacity in addition to in-house solar capacity to reduce power consumption from the kingdom’s national grid.

In April 2020, SWPC signed the final contracts and  water purchase agreement (WPA) with the appointed consortium for the 600,000 cm/d Jubail 3A IWP.

The WPA was signed with the Acwa Power-led consortium, which also includes Kuwait’s Gulf Investment Corporation and the local Al-Bawani, on 30 April.

The Acwa Power-led consortium had submitted the lowest levelised water tariff of SR1.54861 per cubic metre (SR/cm) during a competitive tendering process.

India’s Synergy Consulting was appointed as lead and financial adviser for the Jubail 3 A and B projects. UK-based law firm DLA Piper was appointed as legal adviser and UK-based Atkins as technical adviser for the Jubail desalination projects.

The Jubail 3 scheme had originally been planned as an independent water and power project (IWPP) with a 1.17 million cm/d desalination capacity and a power component of 3,000MW. However, the client decided to drop the power generation component and proceed with the projects as two separate IWP projects.

In March 2021, Engie, in consortium with local companies Nesma and Mowah, recently reached financial close for the $450m Yanbu 4 IWP project in Saudi Arabia.

Energy & Utilities reported in December 2019 that a consortium led by France’s Engie and local companies Nesma and Mowah had signed the water purchase agreement (WPA) for the Yanbu 4 IWP project, which will have a desalination capacity of 450,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

The successful consortium had submitted the lowest levelised tariff of 1.7446SRhala/cubic metre (SRh/cm) during a competitive bidding process.