Abu Dhabi Desalination Plant Generates Steam, Gas, And Water Deals

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated, Houston, Texas). The $1.2 billion Fujairah/Al Ain water desalination and water supply project in Abu Dhabi has received the world's first heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) to be used in desalination plants, in shop assembled style. Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction (KOREA SE:34020.KS) (Seoul, Korea) fabricated the HRSG. The boiler weighs 1,360 tons and measures 30m x 10m x 34m, which is about the size of a ten-storey residential apartment building. The final delivery stage was accomplished on 16 trailer vehicles with 48 wheels.

The HRSG has a total tube length of 50 kilometers and 2,500 kilometers of fins. It generates 380 tons of high temperature steam per /hour using exhaust heat from a gas turbine. The unit includes the world's largest duct burner. The onsite installation period, for the prefabricated and integrated HRSG, will be reduced from the usual 8 months to 3.5 months.

Doosan has already shipped two desalination steam supply systems and is working on the on-site installation. Each of these systems weighs 3,600 tons and is the size of a small football field 27m x 87m. The plant includes a 620 MW power unit, of which 120 MW will be used for the plant's internal consumption and 500 MW will be supplied to the northern emirates and the upcoming national grid of the fFederal Electricity & Water Authority (FEWA).

The desalination plant will produce 100 million gallons/day (400 ,000 tons) for a population of 1.5 million people who will also be serviced with power generated in excess of plant usage. The complete project will include storage tanks and a 185 km water pipeline to Al Ain as well as a 25 kilometer pipeline to Al Dhaid.

The plant is being built in Qidfa in north Fujairah next to an existing water and power plant run by FEWA. The Abu Dhabi government will initially fund the project. At a later stage a foreign partner will be selected to take a stake of up to 49% and to operate and maintain the venture, in line with the ongoing privatization of the power and water sector in the country.

In another desalination project, DEL have named the Halliburton company (NYSE:HAL) (Houston, Texas) Brown and Root as project managers for the AlAin/Fujairah gas pipeline project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where construction is to begin immediately for completion in September 2003. The contract, for which a partnership of the local Al Jaber Energy services and Technip-Coflexip (NYSE:TKP) (Paris, France) , is the preferred bidder, is for the construction of a 182 kilometer, 24 inch line from Al Ain to Qidfa and a pressure metering station at Qidfa. The pipeline will be able to pump up to 360 million cu ft/day of natural gas to a power station and water desalination project of the Union Water and Electricity Company (UWEC). The UWEC project is scheduled for completion in August 2003.

Demand for gas from the power generation sector in the UAE is growing at an annual rate of between 10-12% /year. DEL, a joint venture between UOG, TotalFinaElf, and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) (Los Angeles, California) , is working on the implementation of the $3.5 billion Dolphin project, which involves the production, transportation, and supply of natural gas from Qatar. Occidental have been selected as the second strategic partner in DEL. UOG holds 75.5% in DEL and TotalFinaElf 24.5%. and now Occidental has 24.5% of UOG's stake. Losing international oil company short list bidders were BP, Conoco, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch-Shell.