Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/513849
| 38 | Desalination & Water Reuse | May-June 2015 Oman to add 220 Ml/d to desalination at string of sites by 2021 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) has outlined plans to procure a string of Independent Water Projects (IWPs) at a number of locations around the country totalling more than 220,000 m³/d in capacity. In its seven-year statement running to 2021 OPWP outlined plans to procure moderately sized desalination plants for Khasab in Musandam governorate and Duqm in Wusta governorate, while substantial desalination projects were planned in the Sharqiyah and Dhofar governorates. The Duqm IWP is being considered for 2019 with a capacity of up to 60,000 m³/d depending on the extent to which industrial demands will need to be served. It will be built in a mega economic zone to meet the potable water demand of a new town of some 100,000 people over the next 15 years. The Musandam IWP is being considered at Khasab with a capacity of about 13,000 m³/d. It would be the frst IWP in the governorate to attract substantial recent infrastructure investment. OPWP planned to procure a new 55,000 m³/d IWP in Sharqiyah while in Dhofar Governorate, it planned to procure an 80,000 - 100,000 m³/d IWP to meet 8% a year demand growth in the region. Both were scheduled to be brought into service in 2019. According to OPWP, water demand in the north part of the Oman was projected to increase by 6% a year from 226 million m 3 currently to 328 million m³ in 2021. This region takes in the Interconnected Zone of six governorates where peak water demand was projected to increase by up to 540,000 m³/d by 2021. The zone includes the governorate of Muscat, and fve others whose potable demand is covered by Oman's Public Authority for Electricity and Water, and the Sohar Industrial Port which is served by Majis Industrial Services Company. Israel and Jordan sign water exchange deal REGIONS The Israeli and Jordanian governments have signed a bilateral agreement to exchange water and funnel Red Sea brines to the shrinking Dead Sea. Under the agreement, Jordan and Israel will share the potable water produced by a planned desalination plant in Aqaba. Its waste brines will be piped to the Dead Sea. The 65-80 million m³/year desalination plant in Aqaba will sell to Israel some 35 million m³/year of potable water to convey to its desert south. In return, Jordan will be able to buy an additional 50 million m³/year of water from Lake Kinneret, roughly doubling its current allocation. In addition to water swaps the agreement involves the construction of a 200 km pipeline to carry residual brines from the Aqaba desalination plant to the depleting Dead Sea. The agreement is the result of a memorandum of understanding signed by Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian offcials in December 2013.The memorandum called for Israel to enable the direct sale of additional water at 20 million m³/ year from Mekorot national water company to Palestine, but that was being worked on separately according to Eldar. Areva poised to sell mine desalination plant to Namibia French engineering group, Areva, is poised to hand over a desalination plant to the Namibian government, according to the south-west African country's Chamber of Mines. The Chamber's chief executive offcer, Veston Malango, told a media briefng in Mamibian capital, Windhoek, that the hand-over will be done through the national water company, NamWater. The NAD 3 billion (US$ 270 million) desalination plant at Wlotzkasbaken, is about 30 km from the coastal town of Swakopmund in Erongo region and is considered to be the largest in southern Africa. It was built to supply water to Areva's Trekkopje uranium mine. The plant produces 20 million cubic meters of potable water a year, enough to enable Areva to operate the Trekkopje mine without abstracting water from the ground. The excess production will serve the local communities and industrial activities. Areva had in 2013 signed contracts with NamWater for the distribution of excess water to three uranium mines in the Erongo region - Rio Tinto's Rossing, Paladin Energy's Langer Heinrich and Swakop Uranium's Husab mines. Plant to resist Red Tide algal attacks The northernmost of the United Arab Emirates, Ras Al Khaimah, has opened a 68 Ml/d seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) project in Ghallilah on the emirate's west coast that is equipped to "overcome the red tide phenomena" – the seasonal proliferation of algae that blights the emirates' coastline. Aquatech built the Dhs 320 million (US$ 87.1 million) facility for the Federal Electricity and Water Authority (FEWA) under an engineering-procurement- construction deal awarded following competitive tender in 2011. The contract included civil works, buildings and electrical and mechanical installation. The scale and impact of harmful algal blooms are rising. They clog pre-treatment flters and foul and damage reverse osmosis membranes as well as create bad taste and odour in the permeate (see page 35). Dissolved air fotation pretreatment is included in the Ghallilah plant to tackle algal blooms following pilot studies by FEWA. The plant uses 4,788 Toray SWRO membrane modules with X-Flow ultrafltration membranes by Pentair.