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S'pore to build two desalination plants

SINGAPORE: Singapore will invite the private sector to build one of two desalination plants to supply the island state with a combined 30 million gallons per day of drinking water by 2005, a government statement said.

It will invite tenders early next year for a plant to deliver about 20 million gallons per day of water by 2005, while the government itself will build and operate a smaller plant of about 10 million gallons per day, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said on Saturday.

"Instead of PUB building and running all the desalination capacity, it will commit to buy a minimum quantity of desalinated water for a minimum period of years. The private sector will then to be invited to bid for these supply contracts."

Public Utilities Board (PUB) is one of Singapore government's statutory boards.

The government previously planned to build a 30 million gallons per day desalination plant on its own to convert sea water into drinking water using Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation technology, a process which is extensively used in arid countries.

"We have decided to change our original decision and leave the choice of technology for the desalination plant open."

The ministry said however recent experiences in the United States and Europe showed that technologies such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) had proved more cost-effective.

Using the RO process, the price of recently contracted water had come down to $0.84-1.20 per cubic metre compared to around $2.00 via MSF distillation.

Most of the city state's water supply is currently met by imports from Malaysia.-Reuters