JEDDAH, 1 May 2008 — The water shortage in Makkah, Jeddah and Taif will be solved within six months when the third desal plant in Shuaiba will start pumping water to the three cities, according to Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Hussayen.
He also announced the arrival of the first floating desalination plant in Jeddah, and said the plant with a daily capacity of 50,000 cubic meters would beef up the city’s water network. He said the floating plant would start operation soon.
According to Abdullah Ahmed Bajunaid, CEO of Bawarij International, a second floating plant would arrive off Jeddah within a month. The two ships, said to be the largest floating desal plants, were built in a record time of seven months.
In a previous statement, Al-Hussayen said the floating plants would ensure adequate supply of water for neighborhoods in eastern Jeddah and the area extending between Al-Rihaily and Asfan in the north, and Old Makkah Road in the south.
The Shuaiba-3 plant, which will be completed by the end of this year, will supply of 1.3 million cubic meters of water. The ministry signed an SR9.1-billion contract in 2005 with a consortium of Saudi and Malaysian companies to set up the Shuaiba-3 desal plant, the first independent water and power project (IWPP) in the country.
Al-Hussayen, who supervised the signing of IWPP agreements in Riyadh, then said Shuaiba-3 would supply 194 million gallons of water daily as well as 900 megawatts of electricity. Work on the project started on Jan. 21, 2006, and its first unit will begin production on Oct. 13, 2008.
The government has established a firm named National Water Company (NWC) with a capital of SR22 billion to provide services related to ground water, drinking water distribution, and collection and treatment of sewage on a commercial basis.
NWC signed a contract with Veolia Water AMI of France on Tuesday for water production, distribution and wastewater collection in Riyadh city. Al-Hussayen, who signed the contract on behalf of NWC, said similar agreements would be signed to cover all major cities.
The minister said the formation of the company would not affect water prices in the country. “The water tariff will be determined by the state and the company will not interfere in that matter,” Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic daily quoted him as saying. NWC will have an independent budget.
He said five Saudi cities consume about 60 percent of the country’s water resources and emphasized the need to reduce per capita water consumption, which exceeds 270 liters. He said his ministry has allocated SR800 million to stop leakage of water from the network. “The Kingdom loses 300,000 cubic meters of water daily as a result of leakage,” he pointed out.
