SAUDI ARABIA – Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC) announced the consortium of ACWA POWER, Haji Abdullah Alireza & Co. (HAACO) and AlMoayyed Contracting Group (AMCG) as the preferred bidder for the Rabigh 4 Independent Water Plant (IWP) project.

The project will be located in Rabigh on the Red Sea coast and involves the construction and operation of a 600,000 m³/day reverse osmosis desalination plant as well as storage tanks with a total capacity of 1,200,00 m³. SWPC revealed that the preferred bidder submitted a water cost tariff of...

U.A.E – Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) has awarded a contract for the construction of the Mirfa 2 Reverse Osmosis plant to a consortium made up of Taqa and France’s Engie. Taqa, also known as Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, will take a 60 percent share of the equity in the project, along with a stake in the operations and maintenance company. The remaining 40 percent will be held by Engie. The project is expected to become fully operational in the third quarter of 2025 and will utilize low-carbon technology to produce up to...

U.S.A. – South Coast Water District’s Doheny Ocean Desalination Project has been approved by the California Coastal Commission and the State Lands Commission. The plant will have a production capacity of 18,927 m³/d and will utilize subsurface slant wells to draw seawater in from beneath the ocean floor and pump it to the treatment facility. Construction of the slant wells beneath the Doheny State Beach Campgrounds is estimated to take up to 18 months and the project has so far received grants worth a total of $32.4 million. The plant is...

SAUDI ARABIA – ACCIONA has achieved a key milestone in the development of the Al Khobar 2 desalination plant, ramping up production to a full capacity of 630,000 m³/d during final testing. The new desalination plant in the east of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest in the country and the largest reverse osmosis facility built by ACCIONA worldwide. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) awarded ACCIONA and its partner RTCC the construction of the Al Khobar 2 plant in 2020. The plant is already supplying the water network for Khobar...

MOROCCO – The Moroccan government has announced it is developing three new seawater desalination projects in the cities of El Jadida, Safi and in the Oriental Region. The Safi plant will have a production capacity of 86,400 m³/d and the El Jadida plant will produce at a rate of 75,800 m³/d. The plant to be set up in the Oriental region will have an initial capacity of 274,000 m³/d with the option to expand to 547,000 m³/d later. The Oriental region plant is still in the study phase and requires an investment of $125.7 million. The three...

INDIA – The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) new desalination project near Manori is on hold for now. Two months after getting a detailed project report from an appointed consultant, BMC still hasn’t initiated any proposal. The plant is estimated to produce 200,000 m³/d and is projected to cost $428 million.

BMC had appointed IDE Water Technologies Ltd., to prepare a proposal and engaged SMEC India to evaluate the study and designs prepared by IDE. After submitting the detailed project report the consultant approved the design, but...

U.S.A. – IDE Technologies Ltd is planning to build a $5.5 billion desalination plant in Sonora, Mexico, to supply drinking water to the state of Arizona, U.S.A. Last December IDE Technologies proposed the plan to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) of Arizona and the company has been waiting for purchasing commitment from the state’s authorities before it can officially move forward with the project.

The plant will be located in the city of Puerto Peñasco and will draw water from the Sea of Cortez and will be connected to a...

SAUDI ARABIA – Lamar Holding has signed a $693 million agreement with Saudi Aramco to construct a reverse osmosis desalination plant for the Jafurah gas development scheme. The facility will have a capacity of 80,000 m³/d and the project also includes a water distribution network and power and utility facilities. Besides Lamar Holding, Mowah Co. is also investing in the plant and SEPCO Electric Power Construction Corp. will be the assigned EPC contractor for the project. (Oil&Gas)

IRAN – The Iranian Energy Ministry is looking to add...

INDIA – The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) is accelerating construction work on Nemmeli’s third desalination plant and expects the plant to commence operation in April. Construction of the plant and the main water transmission pipelines is currently 80 percent completed. Once finished the plant will have the capacity to treat 150,000 m³/d. (The New Indian Express)

MEXICO – Los Cabos water utility Oomsapas in Mexico’s Baja California Sur state has resumed its plans to build a desalination plant in the...

SAUDI ARABIA – The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) of Saudi Arabia announced plans for an integrated reverse osmosis membrane desalination plant. The plant will be the first of its kind in the Middle East and only the second outside of Japan. Construction of the plant will be carried out by a Saudi-Japanese team in partnership with the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority, and the Government Expenditure and Projects Efficiency Authority. (ARAB NEWS)

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation recently also announced that...

MOROCCO – The Director General of the Moroccan National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (Onee) recently commissioned the Laayoune desalination plant. The plant has a production capacity of 26,000 m³/d and supplies drinking water to the populations of Laayoune, El Marsa, Foum El Oued and Tarouma in Western Sahara.

The $43.8 million plant in Laayoune is Onee’s fourth plant in operation in Morocco. The facility launched operations more than a year after the deadline set by Onee in June 2021 and will raise drinking water supply of the...

EGYPT – Egypt’s Engazaat is collaborating with Sweden’s Azelio and France’s Mascara Nouvelles Technologies to provide water to farms in Africa. The Save Cleantech Utilities coalition was announced on the sidelines of COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. The alliance aims to provide farmers in off-grid desert regions in Africa with a model for water and electricity services.

The alliance will set up water desalination systems via the Osmosun solution developed by Mascara and all the plants will be powered by renewable microgrids using solar...

QATAR – To accommodate with hosting the World Cup, Qatar has increased its water supply by 10% according to Kahramaa, the country’s water and electricity and utility. The increased water supply draws from Qatar’s large desalinated reserves as well as increasing daily desalination production capacity. The water is used to serve the needs of an expected 1.2 million fans and maintain thousands of acres of grass grown for football fields and training sites. Desalinated water makes up 60% of Qatar’s total water supply and the government heavily...

QATAR – ACCIONA has revealed it will finance an Artificial Intelligence (AI) project at the Umm Al Houl desalination plant in Qatar to lower the carbon footprint of the plant by 12,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The plant, scheduled to become operational by April 2021, will use an AI platform called Maestro, to optimise operations and achieve energy savings. The Maestro AI platform processes operational data in real-time to allow predictive, autonomous and continuous optimisation at scale. (Construction Week)

NAMIBIA – The governments of...

DJIBOUTI – A new desalination plant located in Doraleh was inaugurated on March 14^th by Djibouti’s president. The plant was constructed by Eiffage genie civil, a subsidiary of Eiffage, in partnership with Tedagua. The plant is powered by a nearby wind farm and is one of the few wind-powered water treatment plants in Africa. The plant has a production capacity of 22,500 m³/d and will supply drinking water for up to 250,000 Djiboutians. There are plans to extend the capacity of the plant to 45,000 m³/d after the full completion of the ‘...

BELGIUM – Macquarie Capital has partnered with AVAIO Capital in finalising the development and construction of a new desalination plant in Port of Antwerp. The project intends to cut down industrial use of water sourced from the Albert Canal while minimising the need for water treatment chemicals. AVAIO in collaboration with Port of Antwerp and its anchor customers including Covestro and Evonik, plan to apply for core permits in 2021 and begin construction in 2022, with the aim to commission the plant by 2024. Macquarie Capital will aid in...

U.S.A. – The Bureau of Reclamation is awarding $3.6 million to 10 projects that seek to improve technologies for water supply development from non-traditional waters, including seawater, brackish groundwater and municipal wastewater. Reclamation selected six laboratory projects and four pilot-scale research projects. The $3.6 million will be matched by $5.3 million in non-federal funding to support the research projects. The Desalination and Water Purification Research Program supports President Biden’s new Executive Order on Tackling the...

MOROCCO – The Irish company Ingersoll Rand’s Engineering Project Solutions has been selected by Abengoa to supply a compressed air system for the Chtouka desalination plant. The plant is currently under construction by the Abengoa subsidiary Aman El Baraka. Ingersoll was chosen for its CompAir technology, which will also power the station’s pneumatic equipment, valves and electrical controls.

The desalination plant will launch operations in March 2021 and will supply 150,000 m³/d water to the drinking water grid of Greater Agadir and will...

GERMANY – Floating WINDdesal (FWD) is a European industry initiative developing a new technology concept that combines a desalination plant and a floating offshore wind turbine, both supported by a floating semisubmersible structure. The technology will be implemented in the Middle East region later this year.

At present three modules of varying sizes are in preparation, with respective water treatment capacities of 15,000, 30,000 and 50,000 m³/d. Utilizing a semi-submersible support structure, partially derived from deep water drilling rigs...