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2026-10-08Key Facts: UK water treatment technology company Bluewater Bio has been awarded the Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant (IWWTP) upgrade and expansion contract for Jeddah First Industrial City by the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (MODON). The project will increase treatment capacity from 25 MLD to 40 MLD (approximately 4万 cubic meters/day, an increase of 60%), using 14 SMART units driving the HYBACS biological process + 6 FilterClear tertiary filtration systems, producing 24 MLD of tertiary treated water fed into a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system for reuse, serving more than 1100 factories in the park, with completion expected in Q3 2027年.
1. Project Background: Industrial Expansion Pushes the Wastewater Plant to "Overload"
Jeddah First Industrial City (Jeddah 1sth Industrial City) in Saudi Arabia is managed by the Saudi Industrial Property Authority MODON and is home to an important manufacturing cluster in the western part of the Kingdom. As the park's investment attraction has continued to expand in recent years, both the volume and pollution load of industrial wastewater have exceeded the design capacity of the original treatment plant. This is not an isolated case—in many emerging industrial zones in the Middle East, "factories first, supporting infrastructure later, and infrastructure unable to keep up with expansion" is almost a standard challenge, and the biggest obstacle to expansion is often not technology, but available land and civil construction timelines.
To resolve this bottleneck, MODON awarded the entire facility to Miahona under a 20年 ROT (Rehabilitate-Operate-Transfer) concession, with SUECO serving as the EPC general contractor; Bluewater Bio provides the facility with a biological treatment and tertiary treatment process package. This three-party combination of "operator + EPC + technology provider" is also a relatively common organizational form for water projects in the Middle East today.
2. Technical Solution: HYBACS + FilterClear as a Low-Footprint Approach
In response to the hard constraint of "no large-scale new civil construction," this project chose a route of replacing traditional tanks with intensified equipment:
- HYBACS biological treatment process—driven by 14 SMART units. The core value of HYBACS lies in significantly enhancing biological treatment capacity without building large new civil structures, thereby bypassing the bottlenecks of land and civil construction timelines.
- FilterClear tertiary filtration—equipped with 6 systems, producing 24 MLD (approximately 2.4万 cubic meters/day) of tertiary treated water as feedwater for the downstream Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit, converting it into high-quality reclaimed water.
- Low footprint, low O&M cost—Fergus Rooksby, Commercial Director of Bluewater Bio, stated that the combination of HYBACS and FilterClear provides a solution that is "cost-effective, small in footprint, simple to operate, and low in O&M cost," while significantly reducing ongoing service costs.
- Modular future expansion—the process package retains the ability to add modules later, providing Miahona with a flexible path to increase RO reclaimed water volume, giving the system "future-proof" scalability.
3. Engineering Requirements: No Shutdown During Retrofit
The most critical constraint of this upgrade is that—the treatment plant must remain in continuous operation throughout construction, avoiding interruptions to industrial users. For a park wastewater plant serving more than 1100 factories, even a brief shutdown could trigger production cuts at upstream enterprises. Therefore, the entire upgrade solution must be advanced in a "build while operating" manner alongside the existing facilities, which is both the basis for choosing the technical route and the practical reason for selecting modular, low-footprint processes.
According to the plan, the project is expected to be completed in Q3 2027年. By then, the plant's treatment capacity will jump from 25 MLD to 40 MLD, while pollutant removal performance will improve simultaneously, providing a stable water source for industrial reuse.
4. Why It Matters: Industrial Wastewater in the Middle East Is Shifting from "Discharge" to "Reuse"
Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with the most severe water scarcity in the world, and the pressure from industrial water costs and water abstraction quotas has remained high for a long time, which has directly driven investment waves in two directions:
- Maximizing reuse—returning secondary/tertiary treated effluent to industrial cooling and process links after advanced RO treatment, using a "second water source" to replace expensive fresh water or desalinated water. The 24 MLD RO influent scale of this project precisely reflects this priority.
- Near-Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) is becoming a trend—in another benchmark project in the same region, Veolia obtained an OM contract worth 6300万 USD for 7年 phases from Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) for the Al Zour refinery, responsible for treating a wastewater plant with a reuse scale of 1500 cubic meters/hour and a sludge incineration unit, with the goal of achieving ZLD (Zero Liquid Discharge).
In Jubail Industrial City in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Amiral Industrial Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Project led by Marafiq has completed financial close of 5亿 USD (the project company Aqua Renew is held 40% by Marafiq, 35% by Veolia Middle East, and 25% by Lamar Arabia Energy), and is used to treat complex industrial wastewater including spent caustic, with commissioning expected in 2028年. These cases together outline a clear picture: industrial wastewater governance in the Middle East has fully shifted from "end-of-pipe compliance" to a new stage of "resource recovery and reuse."
V. TIANYI TECH's Viewpoint
TIANYI TECH believes that the two aspects of this project most worth learning from by Chinese peers are: first, the methodology of "upgrading and capacity expansion under constrained site conditions"—replacing traditional tank expansion with high-efficiency biological processes and removing the civil construction cycle from the critical path; second, the synchronized planning of "upgrading and capacity expansion + RO reuse", with new/retrofitted facilities treating reuse water as a product output rather than a byproduct from the very beginning of design. This approach also has direct reference value for the upgrading and retrofitting of wastewater treatment plants and reclaimed water allocation currently being promoted in China.
About TIANYI TECH (TIANYI LIMITED)
TIANYI TECH focuses on the fields of wastewater treatment, reclaimed water reuse, and water resource recycling, providing one-stop services from process consulting, scheme design, equipment integration, engineering implementation, to smart operation and maintenance. The company is committed to promoting wastewater resource recovery through technological innovation, helping industrial enterprises and municipal clients achieve multiple goals including water conservation and carbon reduction, compliant discharge, and sustainable development.
Source: Filtration and Separation "Bluewater Bio wins Saudi Arabian wastewater upgrade contract", Gulf Construction Online reports on the Veolia—KIPIC Al Zour and Marafiq Amiral projects, compiled and organized, 2026年10月
