Abstract
Bahrain receives groundwater by lateral under-flow from the Dammam aquifer,
which is a part of an
extensive regional aquifer system. Excessive
extraction from this aquifer has led to an increased saline
content
through water coming from adjacent brackish and saline water sources.
More
than half of the country’s water is provided by the Hidd independent
water and power plant
(IWPP), with just 15% of consumption provided by
ground water in 2008. Desalinated water now
accounts for more than 80% of
Bahrain’s water provision, a proportion that is likely to increase over
time.
Desalinated water capacity has increased significantly since Q109
with the commissioning of the third
phase of the Hidd Power Company
desalination plant, which has raised output to 90mn gallons a day
(g/d)
– an increase of 60mn g/d over its previous capacity.
The
Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) is the agency responsible for the
production and supply of
power and water in Bahrain, working as an
independent arm of the state. It has successfully pushed for
the
development of IWPPs, with the commissioning of the Hidd phase three and now
the award of the
Addur IWPP contract.
The kingdom has also drafted a
national policy for wastewater, including reuse of treated sewage
effluence. A major boost to wastewater treatment capacity will come with the
development of the
Muharraq wastewater plant, which will have a 150,000
cubic metres per day (m3/d) capacity.
EWA has also made improvements in
increasing the coverage of sanitation and sewage connection to
88% of the
island’s population, and is on target to reach full coverage by
2015.
EWA is looking to award during Q3 the consultancy contract on a
water transmission development
scheme, which will add 165 kilometres of
new pipelines, which will hold an extra 48mn g/d of water
produced from
the Addur IWPP. The government is now looking to ramp up private-led
development of
Bahrain’s water sector, making the investment climate
even more business friendly. The Muharraq
sewage treatment plant is the
first major fruit of the country’s privatisation effort, and to ensure
its
success, the government has guaranteed effluent supplies and will take
all the treated water.
Hidd’s sponsors have held talks with other
partners about selling a stake in the IWPP, focusing on
Japanese buyers
– the thinking being that the acquisition of equity by a Japanese group
would open up the
prospect of further financing from Japan Bank for
International Cooperation.
Securing finance is now a major issue for Gulf
IWPPs. Difficulties securing long-term debt finance in the
current climate
forced Suez and GIC, the sponsors of the planned Addur IWPP, to go to the
market for a
US$1.7bn medium-term loan for the project. However, after a
sweetening of terms, a number of lenders
committed to the financing
package in May.
The government anticipates a significant increase in the
use of treated effluence in future with plans to
use the wastewater in
irrigation, enabling further reduction in groundwater extraction rates.
However,
treated wastewater has been considered to be of very poor
quality, to the extent that agricultural users
have refused to use it to
irrigate crops.
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