Power, desalination and sewage specialists Oman National Engineering and Investment Company (ONEIC) is planning to construct desalination plants in the sultanate as the demand for water is expected to grow by about eight per cent each year until 2017.
Speaking to Muscat Daily following the announcement that ONEIC had won a RO1.8mn contract to build a desalination plant, otherwise known as a reverse osmosis (RO) plant, in Murasti in the Al Wusta region, company CEO Eng Mohammed al Saleh said that the company intends to start manufacturing the plants at the Rusayl Industrial Estate.
He said, "We are going to be manufacturing the RO plants in Rusayl. We have already signed an agreement with one of the companies which builds these plants. It is in keeping with our core business." ONEIC will pre-fabricate plant components in Rusayl and move them to client sites for assembly.
The decision comes as ONEIC identifies the water services sector as a key growth sector in the coming years, as demand for desalinated water is expected to increase in the sultanate from 163mn cu m in 2010 to 278mn cu m in 2017, according to a study by Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) last year.
Saleh said, "It is going to be growing very much over the next few years, because it is related to water and we know the scarcity of water here."
The OPWP study shows that the area with the highest expected growth in demand is the Duqm area, which is predicted to grow 54 per cent year-on-year from 1,000cu m per day in 2010 to 21,000cu m per day in 2017.
The latest desalination plant contract won by ONEIC, to build the Murasti desalination plant in Khuaima, Al Wusta region, will see construction completed within nine months. "This will be under our EPC contracts division, which includes power stations and sub-stations," Saleh added.
The company won three contracts to build desalination plants in Oman in 2010, at Al Hallaniat, Jalan Bani Bu Ali in the Sharqiyah region and Al Sail village in the Al Wusta region. It also won a contract to supply potable water to Petroleum Development Oman's Marmul and Harweel camps in southern Oman.
ONEIC has already had a successful 2011, winning billing tenders for Majan Electricity Company and Mazoon Electricity Company as well as a RO2.6mn contract to expand Khasab power station, a RO2.5mn operation and maintenance tender for Sultan Qaboos University and a contract to expand Muttrah Stores transformers station for Muscat Electricity Distribution Company.
In the first quarter of 2011, the company's net profit grew almost 16 per cent to RO791,617 from RO685,138 in the corresponding period of 2010.
© Muscat Daily 2011
