Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday that it will tender 10 strategic water reservoir projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to support the resilience of the kingdom’s water sector.

The new Independent Strategic Water Reservoir (ISWR) projects represent an aggregate water storage capacity of 36 million cubic metres (m3), details shared by the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP).

The IWSRs, owned by the Ministry of Environment, Water & Agriculture, would be procured under 35-year Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) contracts, and tendered over a seven-year period starting next year (2024).  

Zawya Projects has listed the 10 strategic reservoir projects below as per their launch dates:

  • ISWR Jeddah

Location:  Jeddah

Capacity: 5,000,000 m3

Launch: March 2024

  • ISWR Asir

Location:  Asir

Capacity: 5,220,000 m3

Launch: March 2026

  • ISWR Makkah

Location: Makkah

Capacity: 8,000,000 m3

Launch: January 2027

  • ISWR Tabuk

Location:  Tabuk

Capacity: 735,000 m3

Launch: March 2027

  • ISWR Al Qassim

Location:  Al Qassim

Capacity: 1,011,000 m3

Launch: August 2027

  • ISWR Najran

Location:  Najran

Capacity: 1,595,000 m3

Launch: August 2027

  • ISWR Jazan

Location:  Jazan

Capacity: 4,460,000 m3

Launch: March 2028

  • ISWR Al Madinah

Location:  Al Madinah

Capacity: 6,439,000 m3

Launch: March 2029

  • ISWR Riyadh

Location:  Riyadh

Capacity: 2,873,000 m3

Launch: March 2029

  • ISWR – Al Baha

Location:  Al Baha

Capacity: 1,000,000 m3

Launch: March 2029

Saudi Arabia is also prepared up a pipeline of seven new Independent Water Plant (IWP) projects representing an aggregate desalination capacity of 2.8 million m3/day.

On Wednesday, Saudi state news agency SPA reported that the NCP has approved 200 projects for privatisation and co-development with the private sector under the public-private partnership (PPP) model in 17 sectors.

(Writing by Anoop Menon; Editing by Bhaskar Raj)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)