Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant

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08/04/2026

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Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant is one of the facilities affiliated with the Saudi Water Authority. It is located on the eastern coast of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and was inaugurated in 2014. The plant produces approximately 1.025 million m of desalinated water per day. The cost of the plant project, including power generation and desalinated water transmission lines, reached approximately SAR27.4 billion.

Location of Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant

Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant is located specifically in Ras Al-Khair Industrial City, approximately seventy-five km northwest of Al-Jubail Governorate. It supplies desalinated water to both Riyadh and the Eastern Provinces. The plant’s production system operates using reverse osmosis technology and initially produced around 340,000 m³ of water per day. In 2015, an MSF desalination unit was added, with a production capacity of approximately 740,656 m³ of desalinated water per day.

Production of Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant

According to data from the Saudi Water Authority in 2021, the annual output of the Ras Al-Khair production system reached approximately 380.3 million m³ of desalinated water.

In the security context, the Saudi Water Authority implemented a marine barrier security project for Ras Al-Khair Plant to enhance safety at desalination plants and facilities. The project involved securing the automated control and monitoring room, providing floating units, underwater sonars, sea surveillance cameras, and radars, and establishing an integrated security system for Ras Al-Khair water transmission and production systems to protect the water production sources at Ras Al-Khair. This project provides automated monitoring and surveillance of the systems. It includes the setup of control centers, gates, security fences, guard rooms, automated systems, and surveillance systems.

Projects of Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant

The projects implemented at Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant by the Saudi Water Authority include: the second-stage bypass project at the reverse osmosis station in Ras Al-Khair, aimed at increasing productivity. The project was executed with enhanced output and achieved an annual saving of approximately SAR6,307,200. Another project involved reducing the backwash time of the Dual Media Filter (DMF) to improve the quality of water produced during preliminary treatment, extend the lifespan of filters and reverse osmosis membranes, and increase operational availability. This project reduced backwash time by ten minutes, resulting in an increase of approximately 2,400 m³ of water produced per day.

Water transmission from Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant to Riyadh and Hafr Al-Batin

Among the projects of Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant is Ras Al-Khair to Riyadh Water Transmission System Project, which supplies Riyadh city and the governorates of Al-Majma’ah, Sudair, Al-Ghat, Shaqra, Al-Zulfi, and Thadiq with nine hundred thousand m³ of water. It also supplies one hundred thousand m³ of water distributed among: Al-Nairyah, Hafr Al-Batin, Al-Qaysumah, As-Suairah, Al-Salmaniyah, Al-Sadawi, and Qaryat Al-Ulya. It supplies Ma'aden with 1,350 MW of electricity generated by the plant, while the remaining 1,050 MW are transferred to the national power grid.

The total length of the water transmission pipelines from Ras Al-Khair Plant to Riyadh Region and Hafr Al-Batin Governorate reaches approximately 1,290 km (dual pipeline), with a production capacity of up to 1.025 million m³ of desalinated water per day. The exported electricity production capacity reaches 2,400 MW, generated through dual production using Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) technologies for water production, and Combined Cycle Power Plant (CCPP) technology with gas turbines and steam turbines for electricity generation.

The water transmission project from Ras Al-Khair to Riyadh City operates through three stations and runs along two steel pipelines extending over nine hundred km, with diameters ranging between forty-eight and seventy-two  in. The project includes six tanks with a capacity exceeding one million m³ of water at the first pumping station in Ras Al-Khair, and seven tanks with a capacity of approximately one million m³ of water located northwest of Riyadh, near Diriyah Governorate.

Ras Al-Khair – Hafr Al-Batin Water Transmission System Project has a capacity of approximately 110,000 m³ per day, operating through a pipeline 384 km long, with diameters ranging between four in and forty-four in. The project includes a main pumping station in Ras Al-Khair and eleven tanks with a total capacity of 130,000 m³.

Water is distributed to locations inside and outside Riyadh through the high point outside the city on the Rumah Road, with a supply of one hundred thousand m³; the strategic tanks outside Riyadh on the Dammam Road with a capacity of three hundred thousand m³; the southwest terminal station (TGSW) on Dirab Road with a supply of 110,000 m³; the northwest terminal station (TGNW) on Sulbukh Road with a supply of one hundred thousand m³; in addition to the west terminal station (TGW) operated by the National Water Company, with a capacity of 290,000 m³.

Privatization of Ras Al-Khair Desalination Plant

In 2020, the Saudi Water Authority (formerly the Saline Water Conversion Corporation) expressed its intention to privatize the desalination and power plant in Ras Al-Khair. This plant is the first production complex in which the private sector participates as part of the production asset privatization process, overseen by the Supervisory Committee for Privatization in the Water Sector in Saudi Arabia. The private sector is expected to hold a majority stake. A total of thirty-seven companies and strategic and financial alliances, both global and regional, expressed interest in participating in the privatization.