JEDDAH: A British water and environment trade mission, which is currently on a weeklong tour of Saudi Arabia, finds Saudi Arabia’s water sector “promising and full of prospects for joint ventures.”
“We are impressed with the Kingdom’s water and environment sector and are looking forward to finding distributors, forging partnerships and even consider setting up assembly plants,” Steve Kingdom-Saxby, managing director at Devon-based SCL Water, told a seminar hosted by British Consul General Kate Rudd on Saturday night.
According to him, the Kingdom holds bright prospects for establishing assembly plants for the specialized systems that treat and reuse wastewater. The company specializes in a packaged sewage treatment system that processes effluent, and enables the liquid to be used for onward underground irrigation. “Savings of up to 90 percent have been delivered, compared to spray irrigation,” he said, adding that the system has been designed to be scaleable with solutions that range from those that treat small domestic properties to large industrial units. “In addition, the system’s design enables it to be installed retrospectively and alongside an existing septic tank producing immediate quality improvement,” he said.
A feature that has interested the17-member visiting team is that Saudi Arabia’s water sector is undergoing reform and that the Ministry of Water & Electricity (MOWE) is privatizing the provision of wastewater treatment services within particular regions, and some water supply management contracts have been awarded for Riyadh and Jeddah. The cities of Dammam-Alkhobar, Madinah and other regions will be privatized in a year.