New water desalination plant in Jordan
Jordan-USA, Economics, 8/1/2002

An agreement was signed on July 28 in Amman to establish a salt water desalination plant in Jordan at a cost of $ 154 million, half of it to be paid by the US Agency for International Development.

Two statements by both the Jordanian water ministries and the American agency said that the capacity of the al-Khurba al-Samraa station, near Amman, will be 267,000 cubic meters daily on average with a 535,000 cubic meters daily maximum capacity of treated waters, to serve Amman and its suburbs, with a total population of 2 million inhabitants. The treated waters will be basically used for irrigation purposes.

Implementation process of the project will start by the beginning of 2003 and ill last for three years.

The Jordanian ministry of waters will bear 6% of the project's total cost ( USD 8.9 million), the American agency for international development 43% ( USD 66.1 million) while the coalition of American and French companies will cover 51% of the cost.

Al-Khurba al-Samra station Consortium is composed of two companies from France and the US. It will operate and run the project for 25 years, according to POT system ( Building, operating and property Transfer. ) In a speech he delivered during the agreement signing ceremony, the Jordanian minister of water Hazem al-Nasser stressed the implementation of the project and in the context of the infrastructure in the sector of water and drainage is the first of its kind in the region, contributed to by both the private and public sectors.

Al-Khurba al-Samra will replace an old system to treat water but of a limited production capacity.

Worthy mentioning that Jordan which is considered one of the 10 poorest countries in the world in regard to water resources seeks to increase these resources. Jordan's annual needs of water is estimated at 1.100 billion cubic meters. However, and since 8 years available water amounts for Jordan are only 850 million cubic meters, annually. N.

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