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Veolia’s Rabat project moves to design

9 April 2025

 

French water, waste and energy services firm Veolia is undertaking the detailed design for a new water desalination plant in Morocco.

Estelle Brachlianoff, the firm’s chief executive, told MEED that her firm is undertaking the detailed design for the planned Rabat independent water project (IWP) in the North African state and expects this phase to be completed this year.

“We will make an announcement hopefully this year,” she said, referring to the project’s next stage leading to its construction.

Veolia signed a memorandum of agreement with the Moroccan government in October last year to develop the planned seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant.

Located near Rabat on the Atlantic coast and catering to the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra and Fes Meknes regions, the facility is expected to have a capacity to treat up to 822,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of seawater.

MEED understands the project’s preliminary design and feasibility studies were completed within four months.

The project is one of nearly two dozen deals involving French entities that were signed and announced on 28 October during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Rabat.   

Veolia says the project will supply drinking water to regions “particularly affected by drought”.

The project will be structured as a public-private partnership (PPP), with Veolia involved for over 35 years in the construction, financing and operation of the plant.

The combined population of the four regions the plant will cater to is roughly 9.3 million.

According to Veolia, its total contracted municipal desalination capacity in the Middle and Near East is more than 7 million cubic metres a day.

The majority of these desalination plants use RO to treat seawater, with only two major plants in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait using the older multi-effect distillation technology.

Photo credit: Sur desalination plant in Oman (for illustrative purposes only)

https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13641090/main.jpeg
Jennifer Aguinaldo

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