Saudi and UAE Investing on Desalination Projects 2023

By Anshula Mandaokar , 02 May, 2023

48 percent of the world’s production accounted for desalinated water daily in the Middle East and North Africa, as per the reports by BNC Intelligence. Going by the definition, desalination is the process of removal of salts and contaminants from the sea water to produce fresh water.

According to the 4th MENA Desalination Projects 2023, it shows the details of how a total of $39.3 billion is currently spent on the desalination projects across all the regions. United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are investing most of the countries with $14.58 billion and $10.28 billion regarding the projects, respectively. As per the U.S. Saudi Council, 60 percent of the water in kingdom comes from the desalination done in 2019. The government run Saline Water Conversion Corporation has done majority of the desalination.

The reports also reveal that, both of these oil rich nations have pipeline projects with investments, Saudi Arabia having $7.56 billion worthy projects focusing on the concept, tender and design, on the other hand UAE has $7.88 billion worthy projects.

The desalination plants are very expensive to build and use along with desalination technologies having major limitations. It also requires huge amount of energy to run. The plants also produce toxic chemicals and large amounts of waste brine too, thus harmful to marine life as well as environment and to the greenhouse gas emissions if running on diesel.

        Saudi Arabia's Production of Desalinated Water Doubled Over the Past Decade                                                                       (million cubic meter)