The Riyadh-based Gulf Specialised Water Services Company Ltd (GSWS), a pioneer in providing water treatment solutions, was one of the key subcontractors on the Kindasa Phase B1 expansion project.

GSWS installed all mechanical, electrical and instrumentation equipment required by the project, acting as the mechanical works (ME), electrical works (El), control & instrumentation (CI), and piping subcontractor for the main contractor, Weir Techna.
The contract also included the design, fabrication and erection of all the structural steel works. The main pipe work comprised super duplex (Zeron 100) stainless steel, 316L stainless steel, carbon steel and GRP piping which were fabricated and installed by GSWS. The supplies were as under:

Mechanical installation:
• Seawater intake area equipment – five dual media filters of 30 tonnes each;
• Dosing package skids 1st pass pump / energy recovery units;
• Roma (Reverse Osmosis Membrane Assemblies) - 555 / pressure vessels.
• 1st pass, 2nd pass stage HP booster pump/2nd pass HP pump units; 
• Air scour blower units cartridge filters;
• Eight ultra-filtration (U/F) modules of 7 tonnes each - piping, valves pumps;
• Air compressor – Six GRP storage tanks of  1 tonne each  chillier unit;
• Limestone dosing equipment  single elements; and
• A total of 2,169 valves ranging in size from 1/2” to 32”.

Electrical Installation:
• 13800/6600 V transformers (12  MWA) – two;
• 6.6 kV MV switchgear – 3;
• 380V LV switchgear – 3;
• 4000A busbar trunking; and
• All relevant cabling for the equipment.

GSWS, a company with ISO 9001-2000 certification, is classified as a water and sewage works and electrical and mechanical contractor with the Saudi government.
Founded in 1991, it is engaged in the design, manufacture, supply, installation, operation and maintenance of water and sewage treatment equipment.
The company has the ability to provide solutions based on the latest technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO), distillation, ion exchange, electrodialysis, etc.
 “All of these competing and oftencomplementary technologies are used to purify water. However, current trends indicate that RO is clearly the leader in water purification solutions,” says a spokesman.
“RO can be applied to any ground or surface water desalination/purification application, and advancements in membrane manufacturing and applications engineering have made RO the core process in the water purification engineer’s arsenal of technologies,” he adds.
The company uses reverse osmosis technology for desalinating salty water from both brackish and sea water.
GSWS is one of the pioneers in introducing spiral wound membranes in the Saudi market, being the first company to manufacture a seawater RO plant producing 450 ppm product water from 45,000 ppm seawater, using one pass only.
The Kindasa work was a challenging assignment for the company in many ways. “Carrying out of the work entrusted to GSWS on time depended on two important factors — completion of civil works and arrival of equipment. The time taken by the equipment, shipped from different countries, in reaching the site resulted in delaying GSWS jobs and, consequently, made GSWS contract more difficult to be completed in time,” said the spokesman.
Describing the highlights of the work carried out by the company, he said it installed a 16.2-tonne high-pressure pump measuring 81 m length with the help of a 500-tonne crane. It also used a 250-tonne crane to install a dual media filter weighing 28 tonnes and measuring 9 m in length and 3.3 dia.
The vessel was unloaded from the truck direct to plinth, since the plinth had the anchor bolt to fix the vessel. GSWS succeeded in erecting five vessels in nine hours.
Special welding procedures were used to weld super-duplex pipes and welding experts were brought in for the job since the welding should be conducted under controlled environment. All the welding had to be tested by Xray. Doing such welding on the site was a challenge, says the spokesman.
Special arrangement was made to do the hydrotest at 120 bar for all super-duplex headers and all GRP pipes were laminated without having any stress or load at connecting flanges.
GSWS supplied and fabricated more than 200 tonnes of steel structure for RO skids, dual media fitter and UF. All the works were tested by GSWS QA/QC engineers and representatives of the contractor, consultant and the owner.
Electrical works installed comprised transformers, switchgears, variable speed drives, UPS and DS system, Bus trunks, 13.8 cables, medium-voltage cables, cable supports, stainless steel cable tray, GRP cable tray, earthing and lightning protection, using approve testing procedure was conducted for all installations.

Instrumentation installations included PLCs, PCs, printer, LCD display temperature element, dial indicator, flow meter, pressure instrument, deferential pressure, gauged level transmitters, pressure transmitters, analysers conductivity transmitters, pH transmitters, cable trays stainless steel and GRP, stainless steel channels, magnetic flow-meter converter unit loop test, installation at complete control and instrument system monitored in the control room.
The company was also responsible for erection and testing of some of the equipment supplied by the main contractor, including: bar screens; travelling bands; screenwash pumps; sludge pit pumps; overhead lifting equipment for seawater intake; dual media fitters; air scour blowers; coarse strainers; carrier water pumps; air compressors; UF membrane blocks; UF GRP chemical cleaning tank; UF chemical cleaning pumps; UF chemical cleaning cartridge filter; chemical dosing units and associated tanks; lime dosing system; chiller unit; single element test skid; service water pumps (individually skid mounted with motor); overhead crane (located within RO building); 1st pass HP pumps; 2nd pass HP pumps; flushing pumps; GRP flushing tank; RO GRP chemical cleaning tank; RO chemical cleaning pumps (individually skid mounted with orator); chemical cleaning cartridge filter; 3,330 membranes and 555 pressure vessels.
GSWS’s exclusive design is engineered and built to facilitate easy operation with limited controls and centralised control panel, full safety protection to prevent system damage, automatic shutdown for serious system faults, warning lamps to alert operators, easy availability of system components, and highest quality materials.
GSWS’s speciality is provision of total solution to all water treatment needs. It is able to design, manufacture, supply, install and undertake operation and maintenance of water treatment equipment and systems including: reverse osmosis systems; sewage treatment plants; filtration systems; water softeners and demineralisers; chlorination systems; water storage tanks (glass-coated and non-glass coated); sterilisation systems, U/V, ozone generators, etc.; water bottling equipment and systems; chemical dosing equipment; piping cathodic protection systems and a full range of water treatment chemicals including commodity chemicals and specialty chemicals.

Filtration systems
The company designs, engineers and manufactures all types of filtration systems for automatic and/or manual operation to meet practically every filtration requirement including: iron removal filters; carbon removal filters and sediment filters.
GSWS also provides spare parts, including RO membranes, disposable cartridge filters, media for multi-media filters, chemical dosing pumps, fittings and other spare for water treatment plants and system.
With more than 300 qualified employees, the company has grown to be one of the leading firms in Saudi Arabia, capable of designing and executing all kinds of water treatment needs.
It manufactures stateoftheart RO brackish and seawater systems at its own facility in AlSuly under the supervision of qualified engineers with more than 12 years’ experience
GSWS has installed over 300 units around the kingdom with capacity ranging from 16 cu m per day to 2,000 cu m per day.