SWCC to cut cost of Ras Al Zour by up to a quarter

SWCC has integrated Maaden's planned power plant into its new design for Ras Al Zour.

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), the Saudi state-owned agency that will mastermind the revamped Ras Al Zour power and water project, has said that overall costs will decline by between 20-25%.

Original estimates for the cost of the former IWPP, which was pulled earlier this year by the Saudi government, came in at between US $5.5 billion and $6 billion.

"We expect the price to be less than the contractor's projections back then ... 20 percent ... maybe more..., the average is between 20 and 25 percent," SWCC’s project leader Fuhaid bin Fahd al-Sharif told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry meeting in the industrial city of Jubail.

Sharif said that the reduced figure was due to falling material costs and a change in the design of the project, which will see mining firm Maaden merge its own planned power plant project with the Ras Al Zour development.

The combined plant will now provide 2,400MW of power, more than double the original plan. It is still unclear whether the project's desalination capacity will deviate from the originally planned 1,000,000 cubic metres per day.

Bids for the Ras Al Zour project are invited from mid-November.
 

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