ARCHIVED - Escombreras desalination plant to be taken on by Murcia government

Production at the Cartagena desalination facility is forecast to double next year

The government of the Region of Murcia looks set to acquire the Escombreras desalination plant at a cost of 150 million euros as part of a deal which has been agreed to resolve a long-running dispute over money owed by the government to the Hydromanagement group which currently owns the plant according to La Verdad on Friday.

Hydromanagement is a consortium formed by ACS, the construction firm headed by Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez, and various companies in the Region of Murcia, and last year the group claimed that it was owed 600 million euros by the regional government of Murcia in relation to the Escombreras desalination plant. In March of this year an agreement was reached by which the plant would be transferred to the government in return for compensation of the total amount invested in it, and having discounted the 35 million euros already paid to Hydromanagement this leaves a figure of 150 million euros.

The paper reports that it is hoped that the transfer of this large infrastructure to the regional government will be completed over the next few months, and although until now the plant has not made a profit José Manuel Ferrer, the head of Murcia’s public water authority, believes that production will be doubled next year to over 15 million cubic metres. If this figure is achieved then the plant will become profitable, enabling the government to make its investment worthwhile, and Sr Ferrer’s optimism that this will happen is fuelled by the increased demand for desalinated water which has been caused by the drought over the last 18 months.

At the moment the Escombreras plant is supplying only 5.5 million cubic metres per year, a little over a quarter of its maximum capacity, but this will increase to 8.3 million if companies in the Escombreras industrial area are included. On top of this, Sr Ferrer points out, another 8.5 million cubic metres could be supplied for irrigation to around thirty agricultural concerns in the Campo de Cartagena who are currently suffering from a shortage of water.

One potential problem in this optimistic forecast is that in general farmers and crop growers resent being forced to use desalinated water on account of the price they are asked to pay. At the moment the price of water from the Escombreras plant averages out at 50 cents per cubic litre, but the plan is to mix desalinated water with other supplies to reduce the cost to users.

The desalination plant is already connected by a 56-kilometre distribution pipeline which reaches as far as Fuente Álamo, but those purchasing water are then obliged to install their own distribution infrastructures from this main pipeline to the place where the water is required. This means further costs for end users, and it may well be that the regional government finds it more difficult than anticipated to make the desalination plant of Escombreras a financially viable proposition.