The plant will produce 1.025 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day and will be integrated with a 2,400 megawatts (power plant, in Ras Azzour, on the Arabian Gulf coast.
The project is expected to be the world's largest when completed in the last quarter of 2013.
Saudi-based Arabian Bemco Contracting Co. and Italy's Fisia Italimpianti, owned by Italian builder Impregilo, were second lowest for the water package with a proposal of $1.93 billion, sources said.
South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries came third with two bids of $1.937 billion and $2.348 billion using different technologies, one source familiar with the matter said.
France's Sidem came fourth with a price of $2.45 billion, the source added.
The date for bids for the desalination package closed on May 8, the sources said. The bidding closing date for the power plant has been extended for the second time to May 19.
The Saline Water Conversion Corp will take 1 billion liters of the plant's water production capacity. Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Maaden) would take 1,350 megawatts and 1,050 MWs would be allocated to Saudi Electricity Co.
