Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) has awarded a $1.5bn contract to a consortium of South Korea’s Samsung Engineering, China’s Shanghai Electric and Saudi firm Al Toukhi for the Yanbu’ 3 power plant. The 3.1gw capacity power plant will be built under an engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract on a lump-sum turnkey basis. Announcing the award on 10 December, Samsung said the unit will be part of the Yanbu’ 3 power and desalination plant built at an estimated overall cost of $3bn in Yanbu’ industrial city. It will provide electricity for the Yanbu’ industrial complex, and water for the surrounding area and nearby Medina region. The power plant will take 48 months to complete, said Samsung. It will burn heavy fuel oil, with the option to run on diesel.

The Yanbu’ 3 complex will be built to the south of existing power and desalination plants at Yanbu’. The power plant contract announcement follows the award last month of a $1bn contract to Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction for the Yanbu’ 3 seawater desalination plant. Doosan said on 14 November that the desalination plant will be built with multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation technology and will have capacity to deliver 550,000 cmd (121mn gallons/day) of water, enough to meet the daily requirements of 1.8mn people. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract includes equipment design and manufacturing as well as installation and testing. The project is slated for completion by March 2016. (CONTINUED - 606 WORDS)