Salini Impregilos Fisia Italimpianti unit and a Spanish joint-venture partner are set to design and build a water desalination plant in Saudi Arabia in a $255mn agreement with ACWA Power.
Located in the Shuaiba area on the western coast of Saudi Arabia, the plant will use reverse osmosis technology to deliver up to 250,000 cubic metres of water per day, supplying potable water to more than one million residents in the cities of Mecca, Jeddah and Taif.
In a joint-venture in which it holds 50 percent, Fisia Italimpianti has signed a Limited Notice To Proceed (LNTP) with ACWA Power to start the preparatory work.
The JV expects the signing of a Full Notice To Proceed (FNTP) by July 27, 2017 and to hand over the plant by May 2019.
This new order confirms Genoa-based Fisia Italimpianti as one of the worlds leading builders of large desalination plants, with more than 4 million cubic metres per day of installed capacity and one of the few able to deploy the two prevailing technologies used in the sector: thermal and reverse osmosis.