MUSCAT: Potable water supply to Muscat and South Al Batinah – the most populous of Oman’s governorates – is set to be boosted by around mid-year when a new Independent Water Project (IWP) comes into operation at Barka.

Dubbed ‘Barka V IWP’, the 100,000 m3/day capacity (equivalent to 22 million imperial gallons /day MIGD) desalination plant is being built by GS Inima Barka V Desalination Co SAOC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Spanish-based international water infrastructure company GS Inima Environment.

Madrid-headquartered GS Inima Environment was selected by Nama Power and Water Procurement Company (PWP), the sole procurer of new power and water capacity in the Sultanate of Oman, to execute the project under a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) model covering a 20-year operational timeframe effective from launch around mid-2024. GS Inima Environment announced at the time that total investment in the IWP was around $138 million.

In a post, a top official of GS Inima Environment said construction work on Barka V has now entered its final stretch. “I’m very proud to witness the continuous progress of the Barka V Desalination Plant works. It's going to be two years since GS Inima began on March 30, 2022 the works, and we are facing the final sprint with the commissioning phase and the first tests,” said Alejandro Torrecillas Almansa, Chief Operating Officer – GS Inima Environment.

Barka V IWP is the fifth of a series of water projects that have been built in phases in a cluster at Barka in South Al Batinah Governorate. Based on high-efficiency reverse osmosis (RO) technology, the new plant will displace older, less-efficient water desalination plants that were bundled with power generation components.

According to Nama PWP, Water Purchase Agreements (WPA) signed with at least two older desalination plants in the Barka hub are set to expire at the end of this month. It includes Barka IWP – owned by Barka Power and Water Company (ACWA) with a combined capacity of about 100,000 m3/day, and Barka II IWPP, owned by SMN Power Barka, with a capacity of 120,000 m3/day.

Yesterday, March 19, 2024, Barka Power and Water Co announced in a filing to the Capital Market Authority (CMA) that it has been granted an extension of its Water Purchase Agreements for a period of three months until June 30, 2024.

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