Monday, Oct 27, 2008
Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: The size of waste water treatment and desalination projects under construction in the Middle East is currently around $100 billion (Dh367 billion) and the market is slated to get even bigger with time with expanding economies and population growth, senior industry executives told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Power Generation and Water Middle East exhibition and conference here on Sunday.
The UAE alone is carrying out waste water treatment and desalination projects which are estimated to be worth $15 billion. These include both government and private sector projects, they added.
"This is a huge market to tap. The demand for re-use of waste water is growing by the day for landscaping and district cooling," said Ahmad Al Shuha, director of Abu Dhabi-based Concorde-Corodex Group.
Concorde-Corodex was recently awarded a Dh160 million contract by the Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company (ADSSC) to design, fabricate, construct and commission a membrane bioreactor sewage treatment plant for the largest planned labour accommodation facility in the UAE.
"There's a great potential for us to grow in this market as power and water shortages are on the rise," said Aftab Patel, regional sales manager - Middle East for Eimco Water Technologies, a unit of Canada-based GLV Company.
"There are going to be massive investments in new power plants over the next 10 years in the GCC," Patel added.
Eimco manufactures equipment for power generation desalination and petrochemical complexes.
The world's largest desalination plant is the Jebel Ali Desalination Plant (Phase 2).
It's a dual-purpose facility that uses multi-stage flash distillation and is capable of producing 300 million cubic metres of water per year, or about 2,500 gallons of water per second.
By industry estimates, more than $120 billion will be spent toward developing water and wastewater infrastructure in the MENA region, one of the world's driest regions, over the next decade. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are poised to lead that initiative.
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
