Desalination worries for Hyflux in Libya

Singapore-based contractor Hyflux is “closely monitoring” the situation in Libya, where it is due to start work shortly on a 40,000 m³/d seawater reverse-osmosis facility under a contract awarded in November 2010 by the General People’s Committee for Utilities (the Ministry of Utilities in Libya).

The two-year construction period was due to start upon satisfaction of conditions set out in the EPC contract.

According to Channel NewsAsia, Hyflux is still in exclusive negotiations with the government on two mega- sized seawater desalination plants estimated to be worth about US$ 1 billion to the company.

Other companies with interests in Libya include Hitachi, which signed a membrane bioreactor marketing deal last year with a local contractor and Italian energy giant Eni, which was to build a desalination plant as part of a development in El Agheil.