MIDDLE EAST WATER NEWS IN BRIEF

* ACWA Power International has beaten off competition to acquire the 58% interest in AES Barka held by AES Oasis, a JV between AES Corporation (61%) and the IDB Infrastructure Fund (38.9%).

AES Barka owns and operates Oman’s 456MW and 91,000m3/d Barka 1 IWPP under a 15-year PWPA that expires in 2018. The deal gives ACWA Power its first power and water assets outside Saudi Arabia. Multitech Co. will retain its 7% stake in AES Barka, while the 35% floated on the Muscat Securities Market in 2004 will also remain unchanged.

* Mekorot will proceed with plans to sell a 25% stake of its Mekorot Development and Enterprise subsidiary in the coming year, CEO Ido Rosolio confirmed to GWI. The subsidiary will have a majority stake in the 274,000m3/d Ashdod desalination project, and is also involved in a desalination project in Cyprus as well as projects in Argentina, Brazil, Trinidad and Portugal.

* The Saudi Ministry of Water and Electricity has awarded Dow a contract to supply nanofiltration technology to a plant in the inland city of Ha’il. The NF plant – the Kingdom’s first and the largest in the Middle East – will remove naturally occurring radioactive agents from water in freshwater wells once it is commissioned in 2010.

* A 50/50 joint venture of Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) with Hassan Allam Sons has been awarded the EGP2.15 billion ($393 million) intake, booster station and pipelines contract for the 1.6 million m3/d 6th October City water treatment plant in Egypt.

* Septech has entered into a joint venture with Saudi partner Mawrid Holdings to form Septech Saudi Arabia. Based in Riyadh and with majority ownership by Septech, the JV will target Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning water reuse market as well as desalination projects. Elsewhere in the Kingdom, Singapore-listed Epure International has also announced plans to open a branch office.

* Mekorot will install two rooftop photovoltaic systems to produce 90KW of electricity at its 38,356m3/d Sabha desalination plant in Eilat. Initially, the solar energy will supply only a part of the plant’s electricity needs, but Mekorot hopes in the future to expand the use to cover the entire demand at Sabha.