Fluor Corporation has been awarded a contract by the Dow Chemical Company to build Dow’s reverse osmosis (RO) membrane manufacturing facility in Jubail Industrial City II in Saudi Arabia.
Located at the Sadara Chemical Company complex, the facility will manufacture high-tech RO elements that purify water for drinking and industrial uses.
This is Dow’s first facility of its kind built outside the United States with completion expected by end of 2015. Over 100 jobs will be created at the facility, which will manufacture a range of Dow RO products including Dow FilmTec™ brackish water and seawater RO desalination elements.
The facility will supply the local Saudi Arabian market as well as the wider Middle East and Africa (MEA) region and markets with similar critical water needs, including Eastern Europe, India, China and South East Asia.
“This state-of-the-art facility will bring enhanced capabilities and capacity to Dow’s RO business in Saudi Arabia and perfectly aligns to the kingdom’s drive to offer increasingly diverse employment opportunities for Saudi nationals,” commented Snehal Desai, global business director, Dow Water & Process Solutions.
“This investment also complements our activities at the Dow KSA Research Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, where our research focuses specifically on RO solutions in combination with ultrafiltration pretreatment for seawater desalination,” Desai added.