The Office national de l’électricité et de l’eau potable (Onee), or rather the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water in Morrocco has announced that the Laayoune Seawater Desalination Plant located at Laayoune, Western Sahara, will officially begin operating by the end of the year (2021).
The announcement was made by Abderrahim El Hafidi, the Director-General of the Onee after he visited the project site where preparations for the commissioning tests of the first units of the project are ongoing.
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The project, whose implementation begun back at the beginning of 2021 with a six months completion timeframe, consisted of the construction of a new desalination station with a production capacity of 26,000 m3 / d of water from coastal boreholes.
It also involved the construction of three storage tanks with a cumulative capacity of 5,500m³ and pumping stations to facilitate the delivery of water to households in Laâyoune.
Significance of the project
According to El Hafidi, the Laayoune Seawater Desalination Plant is a “structuring and strategic project” for provinces in the South of the Kingdom and it will have “very positive” impacts on the economic and development dynamics that the region is currently experiencing.
“This flagship project will increase the production capacity of drinking water to 60,000m3 / d and as a result, help meet the drinking water needs of the inhabitants of Laâyoune and El Marsa as well as the Foum centers, El Oued and Tarouma until 2035 at the least.
Plans of implementation of a second phase
ONEE has also revealed plans for the implementation of a second phase of the Laayoune Seawater Desalination Plant. This phase involves the construction of a direct seawater intake over a 2 km stretch and adaptation of the pre-treatment system to strengthen the raw water supply to the station.
The work relating to this phase is scheduled before the end of 2023.
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