Mutlaq Al Ghowairi Contracting Company has signed an agreement with Alfanar Projects to deliver a 380 kV electrical substation for the Jubail-Buraidah Independent Water Transmission Pipeline Project, adding a key power component to one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest water infrastructure schemes. The agreement was announced on April 16 and was signed under the patronage of Eng. Abdullah bin Ibrahim Al-Abdulkarim, president of the Saudi Water Authority. The substation sits within a broader project designed to move desalinated water from the Eastern Province to Qassim, linking two major regions through a long-distance transmission system intended to strengthen supply resilience. For Saudi Arabia, the contract is more than a routine engineering award. It underlines how water security plans are becoming increasingly tied to heavy electrical and grid infrastructure, especially where pumping, storage and long-haul transmission are involved.
The wider Jubail-Buraidah scheme reached financial close in October 2025 with an investment value of about SAR 8.5 billion. The project is being implemented by a consortium led by Al Jomaih Energy & Water Company, with Buhur for Investment Company and Nesma Company Limited as partners. It is structured under a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer model, with commercial operations expected in 2029 after a four-year construction phase.
Project specifications show the scale of the undertaking. The pipeline is planned to stretch roughly 587 kilometres, with transmission capacity of 650,000 cubic metres of water a day and storage capacity of 1,634,500 cubic metres. The design also includes reverse-flow capability, an important feature in a country where supply continuity, operational flexibility and regional balancing are increasingly central to long-term water planning. Officials say the system is expected to serve more than two million beneficiaries once operational.
For MGC, the Alfanar tie-up fits a broader expansion narrative. The Riyadh-based contractor describes itself as an infrastructure group active in engineering, procurement, construction, operations and maintenance across water, transport, urban development and energy. The company says it has been operating since 1977 and has sought to position itself as a domestic delivery partner aligned with Vision 2030, local-content goals and the Kingdom’s drive for strategic industrial partnerships. In its announcement on the substation deal, MGC said it was focused on selecting specialised local and international partners to deepen integration and exchange expertise.
Alfanar, for its part, enters the deal with a long record in grid and power works and an increasingly prominent role in national energy and infrastructure localisation. The company said this year that it had signed strategic contracts worth more than SAR 20 billion with Saudi Electricity Company, spanning high-voltage transmission, storage and smart distribution projects. That backdrop helps explain why Alfanar would be brought into a water-linked substation package: major desalination and transmission ventures now depend on the same technical capabilities driving Saudi Arabia’s wider grid build-out.
The contract also reflects a larger policy shift in Saudi infrastructure development, where water projects are no longer viewed in isolation. Transmission pipelines, storage hubs, pumping assets and substations are being planned as interconnected systems, with financing, construction and operations often spread across specialised private-sector partners. The Jubail-Buraidah project has been presented by officials and backers as a model public-private partnership, with local-content targets rising from 45 per cent during construction to as high as 70 per cent in later operational years.
That matters because the Kingdom’s water demand profile is shifting alongside population growth, industrial expansion and new urban developments. Large inter-regional transfer systems are meant to reduce vulnerability to disruption and to give operators more room to manage peaks in demand. The addition of a 380 kV substation to the Jubail-Buraidah scheme shows how deeply electricity infrastructure is embedded in that strategy. Without reliable high-voltage supply, water transmission on this scale cannot function efficiently.
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