Qatar set to boost its water storage

A QR246mn contract, awarded to the Habtoor Leighton Group, includes pipe works, associated mechanical, electrical and plumbing and instrumentation works, road works and landscaping The water storage capacity in Qatar is to be augmented by 79mn gallons within one year with the construction of 10 new reservoirs and pumping stations. The project comprises nine new 6mn gallon reservoirs at Umm Qarn and one 25mn gallon reservoir at Al Duhail for the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa). A QR246mn contract, awarded to the Habtoor Leighton Group (HLG), includes pipe works, associated mechanical, electrical and plumbing and instrumentation works, road works and landscaping. This is the fourth project awarded to HLG by Kahramaa. The Group had been awarded a QR750m contract for the construction of the Duhail and Umm Qarn Reservoirs in 2009. A further contract for the construction of two reservoirs and associated works in Shahaniya was secured in 2010, and in June this year HLG secured the contract for the construction of the Al Kaaban reservoir and pipeline. According to UK law firm Pinsent Masons Water’s Yearbook 2009-2010, Qatar has stored water reserves of about three days worth of supply based on the average national consumption rate. Kahramaa has earmarked QR70bn on investment in the power and water sector over the next decade to meet soaring demand driven by a rising population and booming industries like petrochemicals, steel and agriculture. London-based research company Business Monitor International, which provides risk analysis on 175 countries across the world, estimates that Qatar’s population could hit 1.74mn by 2020. Gulf Times reported in March 2011 that Qatar has embarked on plans to build a QR10bn mega reservoir capable of holding seven days’ worth of fresh water to avert a potential crisis should its giant desalination plants that supply 99% of the country’s water fail. The country produces most of its electricity and desalinated water from privately managed power and seawater desalination projects run under the Independent Water and Power Project model. Any disruption to these plants could be catastrophic, analysts say, cutting off the state’s only source of freshwater and potentially plunging it into an emergency. Qatar, with minimal groundwater reserves and an average rainfall of about 75mm a year, is more than 99% reliant on desalination to meet domestic demand, according to the General Secretariat of Development Planning. Production of desalinated water, which requires large amounts of power, is expected to reach 325mn imperial gallons a day by the end of 2012, according to data from Kahramaa. Qatar’s storage project, with a planned capacity of 1.9bn imperial gallons, may include a network of reservoirs connected by a 183km, 2.5m-wide pipeline linking the Ras Laffan desalination facility in the country’s north and the Ras Abu Fontas plant in the south, the earlier report had said. From gulftimes