The approval of the world’s largest seawater reverse-osmosis plant in Saudi Arabia was reported by the government-controlled Saudi Press Agency on 11 February 2013.
The governor of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Ibrahim, approved a plant for Rabigh on the Red Sea coast with a capacity of 600,000 m³/d of desalinated water. Construction will start next year, with completion scheduled for 2018.
The director-general of SWCC in the western coast, Muhammad Ayidh Al-Thubaiti, is quoted as saying that the production of the existing Rabigh desalination plant would also be raised to 20,000 m³/d so as to supply Khulaiss and Rabigh governorates. The new plant will meet the needs of northern Jeddah, Makkah and Taif.