Acciona, the Spanish infrastructure giant, has announced that it has secured the main contract worth $398 million for the Jubail 3B Independent Water Plant (IWP) in Saudi Arabia.

According to a statement, the Jubail 3B IWP plant, which is located 65km north of Dammam airport in KSA, will produce 570,000 cu m/day of potable water through reverse osmosis technology to supply the cities of Jubail and Dammam.

The plant will include storage facilities for one operational day, in addition to an in-house renewable energy capacity to reduce grid electricity consumption throughout the desalination process, the statement added.

Scheduled to commence operations in 2024, Acciona said that the plant will be built on a Build, Own, Operate (BOO) model.

Furthermore, as per its H1 results issued recently, Acciona has secured contracts worth $5.50 billion in the first half of the year. Of these contracts, $2.79 billion corresponded to construction and water projects.

In addition to the Jubail 3B IWP project, other big wins included the Playa Carmen-Tulum stretch of the Mayan Railway in Mexico for $85.7 million, the upgrade of the Frankston railway line in Melbourne, Australia for $57.9 million and various projects in Poland worth a total of $67.7 million.

In June 2021, Water Partnership Company (SWPC) said it had finalised commercial funding on the Jubail 3B Independent Water Project.

SWPC selected a consortium comprised of France-headquartered ENGIE (40%), Saudi based Nesma Company Limited (30%) and Abdulaziz Al Ajlan Sons for Commercial and Real Estate Investment Company (30%) in April. The partners signed a 25-year Water Purchase Agreement in the presence of His Excellency Eng. Abdulrahman Al Fadli, chairman of the Board of SWPC and Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture.

It was said then that the consortium would develop and finance the desalination plant, which will be operated and maintained by ENGIE.