Azerbaijan will activate a 20,000 m³/d desalination plant on the Caspian Sea in four months time, according to a report by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The minister of ecology and natural resources for Azerbaijan, Huseyn Bagirov, told media in Baku on 23 May 2012 that some 90% of the plant’s equipment had been already delivered and installed. Initially, it would only produce 1,000 m³/d, he said.
The work is being carried out by Gum Adasi NGDU, an enterprise of the state oil company SOCAR.
Home to about one-third of Azerbaijan’s population, Baku relies on water from the Kura river and the Jeyranbatan reservoir, but supplies have been unable to keep up with the capital’s rapidly expanding population.