Rabigh 3 IWP
Seawater RO, 600,000 m3/day in Saudi Arabia.
The record
- Country
- Saudi Arabia
- Location
- Rabigh
- Coordinates
- 22.638, 39.041
- Technology
- Seawater RO
- Capacity
- 600,000 m3/day
- Capital cost
- US$666 million
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- Water and Electricity Company, then Saudi Water Partnership Company, 25-year build-own-operate water purchase agreement
- Contractor
- SEPCO III (Power China) with Abengoa and SIDEM (Veolia)
- Operator
- Rabigh Water Production Services Company (NOMAC)
- Finance
- Project finance arranged by Natixis, MUFG, Samba and Riyad Bank; ACWA Power 70 per cent with Saudi Brothers Commercial Company 30 per cent at award, ACWA Power 69.7 per cent on the project page
- Award or start year
- 2018
- Commissioned
- 2021-12
Record last checked 2026-09-20.
History
- 2018-11
Tariff of 199.2 halala per cubic metre awarded
- 2018-12
Water purchase agreement signed
- 2019-03
Final agreements signed for a project valued at US$700 million
- 2021-12
Commercial operation on 31 December 2021
- 2022-03
Guinness World Records title for the world's largest reverse osmosis desalination plant
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.
- ACWA Power project page, Rabigh 3 IWP. acwapower.com.
- 600,000 m3/day SWRO in the Rabigh area about 150 km north of Jeddah, offtaker SWPC, project cost US$666 million, commercial operations 31 December 2021, ACWA Power 69.7 per cent, EPC consortium of SEPCO III, SIDEM and Abengoa, operator ACWA Operations.
- Smart Water Magazine, ACWA Power signs final agreements for US$700 million Saudi IWP project, 5 March 2019. smartwatermagazine.com.
- SR 2.625 billion or US$700 million, water purchase agreement signed 24 December 2018, tariff 199.2 halala per cubic metre awarded in November 2018, ACWA Power 70 per cent and Saudi Brothers Commercial Company 30 per cent.
- Smart Water Magazine, Rabigh 3 IWP project achieves Guinness World Records title for world's largest RO desalination, 18 March 2022. smartwatermagazine.com.
- 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.
600,000 m3/day, US$750 million, serving close to a million households in Makkah and Jeddah, 40 per cent localisation. Three different costs are published; the ACWA Power project page figure is used. Coordinates left blank: no source opened here gives the site, and OpenStreetMap carries no separately named Rabigh 3 IWP feature. Coordinates added on 20 September 2026, approximate. OpenStreetMap way 982384524, named Rabigh Desalination Plant, is a fenced industrial polygon of about 14.3 hectares at 22.6381 39.0413, 0.36 km from the OpenStreetMap coastline. Way 899264345 is excluded because its operator is the Rabigh Arabian Water and Electricity Company, Petro Rabigh's own water plant. The surviving polygon abuts way 977552222, named RJM WTS - PSM1, the head pumping station of the Rabigh to Jeddah to Makkah water transmission system, with Saline Water Conversion Corporation storage tanks beside it, and that system is supplied from Rabigh. Rabigh 3 was the only large seawater reverse osmosis plant at Rabigh when the feature was drawn, the Rabigh 4 engineering contract dating from July 2023. The polygon is smaller than a 600,000 m3/day plant would normally occupy and no source consulted prints a coordinate, so the pin is an attribution and not a survey. Reverse geocoding returns Rabigh governorate in Makkah region.