France is to loan Kazakhstan US$ 32 million to build two desalination plants to help supply water for the west of the country.
Nationalized nuclear-energy company Kazatomprom announced on 29 December 2010 that its subsidiary MAEC-Kazatomprom and Natixis Bank had signed two agreements for the loan for a period of 11.5 years (including 2-year holidays). This loan is granted under the warranty coverage of the French government’s export credit agency COFACE.
SIDEM will lead a consortium of French companies to construct two horizontal-film evaporators, GTPI 2 and 3. The first desalination plant with a capacity of 12,000 m³/d of distillate will be installed and put into operation by late 2012; the second, with a similar capacity, will arrive by the end of 2013.
Supplies of fresh water on the entire Mangyshlak peninsula are virtually absent, says Kazatomprom. Commissioning of new desalination plants is therefore essential and a regional- development priority. Currently MAEC-Kazatomprom operates six desalination plants, five of which have already exhausted their design service life of 20 years.
In order to avoid shortages of drinking water, MAEC-Kazatomprom is implementing a program of commissioning new desalination plants. In 2008, it introduced the Israeli-built plant DOU-12, which produces 12,000 m³/d.