José Díaz-Caneja, CEO of ACCIONA’s water business, will participate in an Operations & Maintenance Forumopens in a new tab organized by the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) in Riyadh from the 27^th-29^th March.  

The forum has invited guests from the key water utilities of Oman, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. It is open to all SWCC plant management and staff. The first day of the conference will look at case studies for lowering costs in desalination plant operations. The second day will focus on the digitalization of project delivery and operations.

Mr Díaz-Caneja, a leading Spanish expert in desalination via reverse osmosis, will participate in two different panels at a Forum Workshop on March 28^th and March 29^th. The first day, he will talk about the challenge of operating large desalination plants as well as the operational excellence in water. The second panel will be about Finance and Investment giving an economic picture.

ACCIONA is the biggest contractor for desalination in Saudi Arabia. It is building five very large desalination plants and three large sewage treatment plants in the country. All the desalination plants use seawater reverse osmosis technology and will serve 13 million people. They include Al Khobar I & II, with production capacities of 200m and 630m liters per day respectively;  Shuqaiq 3 & 4,  with 450m and 400m liters per day; and Jubail 3B with a capacity of 570m liters per day.

The recently awarded sewage treatment plants will serve the cities of Madinah3, Buraydah2 and Tabuk2 and will serve 2 million people.

ACCIONA is a world leader in desalination using reverse osmosis technology, which emits 6.5 times fewer greenhouse gases than thermal desalination. The company is committed to addressing the challenges of water scarcity and sanitation worldwide by designing, building and operating desalination, waste water and potable water treatment plants. ACCIONA also operates a water technology center in Spain that focuses on technological solutions for water treatment. 

Saudi Arabia, with a population of 35 million, is the world’s third largest per capita consumer of water after the United States and Canada. The Kingdom last year announced a national program for rationalizing water consumption, setting ambitious targets that include reducing usage by nearly 24% by 2022, and by 43% before 2030. The targets form part of the Saudi Arabia’s comprehensive Vision 2030 social and economic development plan.

Download the full program hereopens in a new tab.