Barka Desalination plant is equipped with high-performance technologies and treatment processes. It provides environmentally friendly and sustained supply of high-quality drinking water at a record low electrical energy consumption, thus offering more energy-efficiency than the current state-of-the-art desalination systems.
The Plant is located 50 km west of Muscat adjacent to the existing Batinah Coastal Highway and has been in commercial operation since 13 June, 2018.
Plant locationThe Barka IWP uses one of the most efficient technologies of Reverse Osmosis (RO) process to produce water.
The process starts at the seawater intake towers, which are located about 1.5 kms inside the sea, from where the seawater is extracted via two intake pipelines buried under the sea bed. Intake towers are provided with passive screens to prevent passage of sediment, debris and aquatic life.
An air burst compressed system is provided around the towers to limit entrance of to periodically backwash the screens to maintain efficient screen performance and also to prevent the clogging due to jelly fish. A chlorination system is installed to prevent marine growth inside the pipelines. Seawater from the intake towers is drawn to the Plant Sea Water Pumping Station, consisting of three sea water pumps with dedicated coarse and fine screens.
The pre-treatment system is required to treat the seawater upstream to the RO system. This is accomplished by the SeaDAF units, dual media filters and cartridge filter systems.
The SeaDAF operation comprises of coagulation and flotation of the seawater particles and the seawater will be further treated at the dual media filter system where the particles will be filtered through layers of sand and anthracite. The DAF is bypassed during normal seawater conditions as the dual media filter system alone is sufficient to pre-treat the water. The DAF is only operated during adverse seawater conditions such as during algal blooms and red-tide events.
Seawater is finally treated at the cartridge filters where most particles sized above 5 micron are filtered before being fed to the RO system.
The Double Pass Split RO system comprises of high pressure pumps, booster pumps, energy recovery devices and thin filmed RO membranes. The RO process is energy intensive as it requires high pressure of up to 70 bar to overcome the osmosis pressure in order to produce the product water. Energy recovery devices are installed to recover the energy in the high pressure reject brine water to reduce the overall energy required to produce product water.
The water produced downstream from the RO system is still not suitable for consumption, therefore further treatment is required to make it potable. Potabilization is achieved with the addition of carbon dioxide that is combined with crushed and purified limestone to produce a balanced and buffered drinking water suitable for consumption. In addition, chlorine is added for disinfection and fluoride to reduce tooth decay. Potable water is then transferred to the PAEW reservoir adjacent to the Plant.
The Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of the Plant has been entrusted to SUEZ, which is also one of the Project Founders. SUEZ was in charge of the construction and is currently operating the plant on top of its investor responsibilities. The Operator is managed locally and benefits from the collective local and international expertise of the Project Founders, who are well established in the region with a demonstrated track record of running similar power and water plants.
We take action every day to protect the lives and health of our employees, subcontractors, customers and the populations among which we work. We aim to be a leader in this area, and deploy ambitious action plans to fulfill this goal.
manhours without LTI, with a workforce of up to 2,000 people on site during construction.
manhours without LTI since commencement of operations.
hours of training for external and internal O&M personnel since commencement of operations.
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