Saudi Arabia is accelerating plans to use private finance to deliver big ticket infrastructure projects DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s privatization push has taken another step forward with plans to build a massive SR3.1 billion ($825 million) desalination plant with French utilities giant ENGIE. The Yanbu-4 IWP plant is the Kingdom’s first seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant to be developed using clean energy as a public-private-partnership (PPP) structure. It will create 500 direct and indirect jobs — with at least two in five of them going to Saudis. The Kingdom’s Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC) said on Monday it had reached financial close on the project. The consortium comprises France-headquartered ENGIE (40 percent), Saudi-based Nesma (30 percent) and Mowah (30 percent. “Our objective will be to create local jobs, support in increasing foreign direct investment, diversifying the economy, and harnessing the global expertise of ENGIE into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said Turki Al-Shehri, CEO of ENGIE in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is accelerating plans to use private finance to deliver big ticket infrastructure projects that would have previously been finance from central funds. The desalination project includes the first water pipeline in Saudi Arabia developed under the PPP structure and will achieve one of the most competitive specific power consumption levels in the Kingdom, SWPC said. It was awarded as a BOO (build, own and operate) contract with a concession term of 25 years with commercial operation expected in the last quarter of 2023. Located west of Madinah on the Red Sea coast, it will have a capacity of 450,000 cubic meters of water per day. The project will utilize reverse osmosis technology to supply potable water to the cities of Makkah and Madinah. T It will include solar energy units generating 20 MW of power to reduce grid electricity consumption throughout the desalination process, as well as water storage tanks designed to maintain a capacity of two operational days.