Public–private partnership in water desalination

Abstract

Historically, governments have the largest share of funding for investments in water resources projects. These projects include water supply and sanitation, communications, agriculture and industrial sectors. Due to the various enormous estimates for future investments in the water sector, domestic and international private firms/investors will be the largest contributors to these requirements. Countries located in arid regions and suffer from water scarcities, such as the GCC countries, rely on non-conventional water resources to meet the needs of almost all sectors. Today, desalination of seawater, in particular, offers a cost-effective supply of freshwater for these countries. It exists in more than 100 countries and it is very difficult to draw a general cost comparison between their investments and operating costs. However, the general trend shows that production costs have fallen steadily over the years. A significant decline in the cost is attributed to fierce competition between prequalified competitors and a transparent prequalification and bidding process. This paper reviews some case studies of BOOT projects and PPP criteria for successful water BOOT projects.

Keywords:

• BOOT projects
• Costs
• Criteria
• Finances