The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) has awarded a contract to develop a seawater desalination facility worth $693 million (2.6 billion Saudi riyals) to Lamar Holding, reports Arab News.
The facility will be a seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant, part of the Jafurah gas project in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. According to MEED, the designed capacity will be 80,000 cubic meters per day, and the project is to include power facilities, in addition to a water distribution network of about 200 kilometres. The power capacity is anticipated to be 270-320 megawatts by 2023.
Local developer Mowah Company will also invest in the new facility. The project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor is the Chinese firm SEPCO Electric Power Construction Corp.
The Jafurah gas development scheme - the largest liquid-rich shale gas play in the Middle East -is part of Aramco’s $3.2 billion unconventional resources programme. Extracting commercial quantities of natural gas from shale gas reservoirs requires advanced drilling techniques; this is why gas fields found within shale rock formations are classified as unconventional. The development of the Jafurah unconventional gas field is one of the most ambitious projects in Aramco’s history.
The developer and investor Kamco, from South Korea, signed the contract for a steam and power plant to support the gas development project in July, while Aramco designated Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. as the financial advisor for the independent utility schemes supporting the project.
