Desalination & Reuse Handbook - Flipbook - Page 39
FEATURED DESALINATION PLANTS
BARKA 4 IWP, OMAN
In July 2018, the Barka Desalination Company
announced the commercial launch of the Barka
Independent Water Project (IWP). With a
120,000 m2 footprint and 281,000 m3/d production
capacity, the seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO)
plant is the largest of its kind in Oman. It forms
part of an extremely active project pipeline, with
planned and contracted projects lined up to 2023,
and is the second large-scale SWRO project to be
commissioned in 2018, after the April start-up of
the Qurayyat IWP. The IWP is the largest single
desalination unit in Oman, representing over 10%
of the country’s operational SWRO capacity.
The plant was financed and built by the Barka
Desalination Company (BDC) – a project company
made up of Itochu Corporation (36% stake), ENGIE
(27%), Suez (27%), and Towell Engineering (10%)
– with an EPC cost of $300 million. BDC signed a
20-year water purchase agreement with the Oman
Water and Power Procurement Company (OPWP).
Suez designed, built, and commissioned the plant,
and will operate and maintain the facility for the
duration of the 20-year agreement.
The plant’s pretreatment system features SEADAF
dissolved air floatation (DAF), coagulation, and
dual media granular filtration (DGMF). A two-pass
reverse osmosis system in a 12+3 configuration
achieves a 46% recovery rate, producing permeate
with TDS levels of 120–500 ppm from feedwater
with a TDS of 42,000 ppm.
BDC emphasises the importance of the
plant’s energy consumption in producing an
environmentally friendly and sustainable source of
high-quality drinking water. Using a DWEER energy
recovery system, the Barka 4 IWP operates with an
energy consumption of 3.15 kWh/m3.
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