Desalination specialist, Hyflux, has won a US$ 48 million contract to build a containerised desalination system for Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) awarded the deal to wholly-owned Hyflux subsidiary, Hydrochem Saudi, to design, build and supply a 30,000 m³/d containerized desalination system.
The system will be located on the site of the existing Yanbu Desalination Plant on the Red Sea coast, 350 km north of Jeddah. It will augment the Yanbu plant’s capacity to ensure a continuous supply to the industrial city of Yanbu and the nearby Medina region.
Under the contract, Hyflux will build ten, 3,000 m³/d containerized units that will deploy its Kristal ultrafiltration membrane technology. Hyflux executive chairman and group chief executive officer, Olivia Lum, said: “This project is a great example of Hyflux’s ability to provide quick, cost-effective solutions for our customers.”
The project is scheduled for completion in about eight months.
The announcement of the contract win followed a recent forecast by Lum of an end to a lengthy doldrums in desalination business in the Middle East. Hyflux more recently picked up a US$ 250 million contract to design, build, own and operate an independent water project (IWP) in Qurayat in Muscat governorate, Oman.
Hyflux predicted that the political uncertainty that has curbed water treatment growth in the in the Middle East was about to cabin under the power of demand: “Pent-up demand in the Middle East and Africa is driving the revival of water infrastructure projects,” said Lum.