Texas county desalination scheme slated to supply industry

The Texas General Land Office has agreed a deal with desalination firm, Seven Seas Water, to develop a plan for building a seawater desalination plant in the San Patricio-Nueces county.

The land office reached a memorandum of understanding with Seven Seas Water to develop a 50-100 Ml/d plant that would supply industrial consumers, according to a report in local newspaper Corpus Christi Caller. Seven Seas Water would be the operator and majority owner of the facility.

Seven Seas Water chief executive officer, Doug Brown told the newspaper: “Our focus will be on industrial customers, which will relieve stress on the residential customers’ system,” . If constructed, the plant would be the first of its kind in Texas that purifies seawater and sells it to multiple customers, Brown told the newspaper.

“This would allow Corpus Christi to invite new industrial development into the area, which they can’t right now because they can’t guarantee water supplies,” he added.

Brown said no water purchase contracts have been signed yet, but there have been discussions with potential customers in the area.

“The great thing about this is you have a MOU with Texas and a competent, experienced water desalination group who are looking at our region to start and expand ocean desalination,” said state representative, Todd Hunter, of Corpus Christi. “It’s a huge boost for our area, and it’s a huge boost for us nationally,” he added.

The project, which is expected to cost between US$ 100 million and US$ 150 million, would be completely privately financed. Nueces County Commissioner Mike Pusley was reported as saying Seven Seas Water “can finance their own project which multiple other companies that came to us about this couldn’t do.”