Siemens Industry announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide the equipment for a long distance pipeline which is to supply water to settlement areas in Saudi Arabia. Eight pumping stations will transport water over more than 900 kilometers of pipelines at a rate of 400,000 cubic meters per day. The contract has a volume of 60 million euros and the pipeline system will start operating at the beginning of 2010.

With the new 'Shuqaiq Water Transmission System', households in inhabited areas which are mainly in the northern and eastern parts of the country will be supplied with potable water from the Shuqaiq desalination plant on the south west coast.

The order received by Siemens includes supply of the equipment, engineering, supervision of the installation work and commissioning for the entire power distribution system, the automation system as well as fiber-optic cable communication solutions between the pumping stations.

The final customer is Saline Water Conversion Corporation, the leading producer and supplier of potable water in Saudi Arabia. The general contractor is a Saudi consortium consisting of the AZIZ Company and Stroytransgas. As early as 2003, Siemens completed a project for AZIZ to supply the city of Riyadh with potable water from Al Hunayy.