Jubail Phase 1 MSF (Jubail I)
Thermal MSF + power, 137,729 m3/day in Saudi Arabia.
Out of service
The record
- Country
- Saudi Arabia
- Location
- Jubail
- Coordinates
- 26.900, 49.770
- Technology
- Thermal MSF + power
- Capacity
- 137,729 m3/day
- Capital cost
- —
- Stage
- Out of service
- 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SWCC reports the phase 1 thermal units withdrawn from service after the new Jubail reverse osmosis plant started, cutting 1.85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and 37 million MMBTU of gas a year
- 2025-03
AIIB approves US$300 million towards rebuilding Jubail 1 and Khobar 2
- 2025-06
SWA signs a US$650 million financing package with AIIB and Infra covering both conversions
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 Jubail I to 1982, an extraction condensing turbine cycle with a power to water ratio of 13.8 MW/MIGD, and notes it is the only SWCC plant whose distillers have no external deaerators.
- Saline Water Conversion Corporation, Annual Report 2022 (English), Production Plants Map, p. 73. swcc.gov.sa.
- gives Al-Jubail 1 at 137,729 m3/day and states the phase 1 thermal plant is no longer used following the start of the new Al-Jubail reverse osmosis plant.
- Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, project 000371, Saudi Arabia: SWA Desalination Rebuild and Upgrades, approved 27 March 2025. aiib.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.
US$300 million non-sovereign backed financing to rebuild the Jubail 1 and Khobar 2 MSF facilities. Recorded as out of service on the strength of that SWCC statement. The plant does not appear in SHARAKAT's March 2026 table of on-production sources for the Eastern Province either. The 2025 AIIB financing is to rebuild it, so it may return.