Al-Khobar Phase 2 MSF (Khobar II)
Thermal MSF + power, 223,000 m3/day in Saudi Arabia.
The record
- Country
- Saudi Arabia
- Location
- Al-Khobar
- Coordinates
- 26.180, 50.210
- Technology
- Thermal MSF + power
- Capacity
- 223,000 m3/day
- Capital cost
- —
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- Saline Water Conversion Corporation, now the Saudi Water Authority
- Contractor
- —
- Operator
- Saudi Water Authority
- Finance
- Saudi government capital budget
- Award or start year
- 1982
- Commissioned
- 1982
Record last checked 2026-09-20.
History
- 1982
Commissioned
- 2022
SWCC names Al-Khobar phase 2 in the largest technology replacement programme in the desalination industry, to be superseded by a 630,000 m3/day reverse osmosis plant saving 4.23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year
- 2025-06
SWA signs a US$650 million AIIB and Infra package covering the Khobar 2 conversion
Sources
6 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- O. A. Hamed and others (SWCC R&D Centre), SWCC MSF Desalination Plants: Current Status and Future Prospects, 6th Saudi Engineering Conference, KFUPM, December 2002, Table 1. faculty.kfupm.edu.sa.
- dates Al-Khobar II to 1982, extraction condensing turbine, power to water ratio 16.8 MW/MIGD, 16 flash stages.
- Saline Water Conversion Corporation, Annual Report 2022 (English), Production Plants Map, p. 73. swcc.gov.sa.
- gives Al-Khobar 2 at 223,000 m3/day and names it among the thermal plants being replaced by reverse osmosis.
- Coordinates from OpenStreetMap, Khobar Power and Desalination Plant, man_made=water_works. openstreetmap.org.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Saudi Water Authority production systems page, read 20 September 2026: it lists Khobar phases 2 and 3 and the two reverse osmosis systems as production systems, so the plant is in service. An earlier revision of this row moved it out of service partly on the ground that SHARAKAT's March 2026 statement omits it. That inference was wrong: SHARAKAT tabulates privately procured independent water projects, not the plants the authority owns and operates, so its silence says nothing about a state plant. The 630,000 m3/day reverse osmosis plant SWCC named as the replacement is held separately in this register, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank approved US$300 million in March 2025 towards rebuilding the Jubail 1 and Khobar 2 MSF facilities, which is an upgrade rather than evidence of retirement.