Saudi Arabia to Tender 51 Sewage Treatment Plants in Major Wastewater Push
Friday, 11 September 2026
Saudi Arabia's National Water Company (NWC) announced on September 3 that it plans to tender 51 sewage treatment plants later this year, with a combined treatment capacity of 888,000 cubic meters per day. The initiative is one of the largest wastewater infrastructure programs announced in the Gulf this year and marks a further expansion of private-sector participation in the Kingdom's water and sanitation sector.
Under the planned tender structure, private-sector partners will take on rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance of the existing treatment assets over 15-year contract terms, supported by capital investment at competitive financing rates. NWC has framed the program as part of a broader push to modernize wastewater infrastructure, attract local and international capital, and localize advanced treatment technologies, including a transfer of technical expertise to Saudi personnel, in line with the Kingdom's National Water Strategy.
The tender announcement follows NWC's report earlier this year that it completed 50 water and sanitation projects worth more than SAR 2.4 billion (roughly $640 million) in the first half of 2026, underscoring the pace at which Saudi Arabia is pushing to expand both its water treatment and desalination capacity. The 51-plant sewage tender is expected to create sizable opportunities for both regional and international engineering, construction, and water-technology firms as the Kingdom works toward its long-term wastewater treatment and reuse targets.
The push to expand wastewater treatment capacity comes as the wider Gulf region continues to confront the fragility of its desalination-dependent water systems. In early September, five of Israel's six desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast were forced offline after a rare algae bloom, linked by researchers to untreated sewage discharge from Gaza, swept north along the coast. The episode, which briefly threatened a substantial share of the country's drinking-water supply before most plants resumed reduced operations, has renewed regional debate over the vulnerability of concentrating water production in a small number of large coastal facilities.
Regional water-security analysts have pointed to incidents like the Israeli shutdown as evidence for the kind of diversified, resilience-focused investment that Gulf states including Saudi Arabia are now pursuing across both desalination and wastewater treatment. Expanding wastewater treatment and reuse capacity, in particular, is increasingly framed by Gulf water planners not just as an environmental measure but as a way to reduce dependence on desalination for non-potable uses such as irrigation and industrial cooling, easing pressure on coastal plants that remain vulnerable to environmental and security disruptions alike.
NWC has not yet released a detailed tender timeline or a list of the specific sites involved, but officials say further details will be published as the tendering process opens later this year.