Israel: Desalination plant could make Israel water exporter

National water company says new facility will not only meet Israel's own water needs, it could also make it a top regional water exporter by 2014.

Israel's national water company signed a financing agreement to build a desalination plant, which officials said could allow drought-ridden Israel to export water to its neighbors upon completion in 2013.

Israel's ADL, a subsidiary of state-owned Mekorot, will build and operate the plant in the coastal city of Ashdod for 25 years, supplying 100 million cubic meters of desalinated water annually, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on 27 December 2011.

Israel is two-thirds arid and to avoid further depleting its fresh water sources it has become a world leader in desalination and wastewater recycling. The new Ashdod plant will join four other desalination facilities that to provide, by the end of 2013, 85% of the country's household water consumption.

"In the coming years we will be able to return water to nature and even sell water to our neighbors," said Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau.

ADL secured funding for the project from Israel's Bank Hapoalim and the European Investment Bank (EIB), the statement said.

The Finance Ministry had previously put a $400 million price tag on the plant, which will use reverse-osmosis to desalinate seawater from the Mediterranean.

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