Japan’s Mitsubishi has been awarded a contract to build the $500m Ras Abu Fontas A3 desalination plant in Qatar.

The A3 plant will have a desalination capacity of 36 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD), and will be developed under an independent water project (IWP) model, with the Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) to develop the project under a 25-year agreement. The water purchase agreement (WPA) is expected to be signed in the next three months with Qatar’s General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa). 

Kahramaa awarded the country’s last major desalination project, the $500m Ras Abu Fontas A2 plant, to QEWC in 2012.  QEWC completed financing for the multi-stage flash (MSF) desalination plant in January 2013. Mitsubishi and Japan’s Toyo Thai Engineering Company are building the facility, which is planned to be completed in 2015.

The award of the A3 contract marks a successful period for Mitsubishi in Qatar, with MEED having recently reported that the Japanese firm has been selected as the preferred bidder for Qatar’s next independent water and power project (IWPP), known as Facility D.

The proposed IWPP is planned to be located in the Qatar Economic Zone (QEZ) near Mesaieed and will have a capacity of 2,280-2,520MW and 123.5-136.5 MIGD of water. About 70-90 MIGD of the desalination capacity will be from MSF/multi-effect distillation (MED) technology, with the remaining 40-60 MIGD coming from reverse osmosis (RO) technology, which has to date only been implemented on a small scale in the country.