Egypt is to build five new desalination plants to serve the drinking water needs of residents in the Sinai Peninsular.

The largest, with a capacity of 20,000 c3/d, will be located in the town of El Tor, on the West coast of South Sinai, and the other four, each with a capacity of 10,000 c3/d, will be dotted around the peninsular’s coastline at Ras Sedr, AbuZenima, Daha, and Nuwaiba.

The projects will be financed by a $98.6 million loan from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, and form part of a wider scheme to develop the Sinai Peninsula.

The desalination plants will include eight pumping stations, and pipeline of 42 kilometres, and are expected to complete by 2019.

The loan is the 42nd made by the Kuwait Fund to the Egyptian government, and was signed by Egypt’s minister of international Co-operation, Sahar Nasr, and director general of the Kuwait Fund, Abdulwahab Al-Bader.