ILF Consulting Engineers announced on Sunday that it has been appointed by Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company (NWC) to provide project management, construction supervision, and design review services for its programme to improve drinking water quality in the Eastern region.

In a LinkedIn post, the Austria-headquartered engineering consultancy said the programme, billed as the biggest urban water supply programme in the Kingdom, will address the high salinity levels in drinking water in the Eastern cities of Dammam, Al Khobar, Qatif, Jubail, Abqaiq, and Al Hassa.

The programme comprises of 13 individual major urban water supply projects with a total value of almost 5 billion Saudi riyals ($1.3 billion), and include the construction of transmission lines, network extensions, pumping stations, and storage tanks for each of the five cities, according to the post.

The city-wise distribution of projects are as follows:

• Dammam: 4 projects worth SAR 2.256 billion

• Qatif: 2 projects worth SAR 643 million

• Khobar: 2 projects worth SAR 665 million

• Al Hassa: 2 projects worth SAR 543 million

• Jubail: 1 project worth SAR 629 million

• Abqaiq: 2 projects worth SAR 68 million

Construction opportunities, according to the post, include:

  • 42 mega/middle-sized reservoirs to improve strategic and operational storage
  • 21 pumping stations to improve the operational safety within and amongst the cities.
  • 520 km of water transmission pipelines to connect to new water sources and create strategic loops amongst the cities
  • Distribution networks extensions to serve new areas and replace old pipelines to reduce water losses and improve efficiency of the overall system

The programme timeline, according to the post, extends up to 2050.

Saline Water Conversion Company (SWCC) will supply an additional 420,000 m3/day of desalinated potable water to make up for the supply loss resulting from the closure of all existing groundwater wells with high salinity levels, the post said, adding that future daily demand for the five cities is estimated at 1,370,000 m3/day.

ILF Consulting Engineers in Saudi Arabia will be supported by the firm’s offices in Austria, Czech Republic, and Poland.

(Writing by SA Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)