Mellitah Oil and Gas Company’s project management team held a meeting last Tuesday at its Mellitah headquarters with the executing contractor of the gas supply line project from Mellitah Gas Processing Complex to the water desalination plant in Zuwara.
The meeting was held in the presence of a member of Mellitah’s board of directors, Muhammad Gashout, the Director of the Project Implementation Department, representatives of the project management and the Department of Sustainable Development at the National Oil Corporation.
The meeting reviewed the progress of the project’s implementation and to how to overcome difficulties faced by the team implementing this important and vital project, considered one of the most important development projects for the areas adjacent to the oil installations.
Gas supply pipeline vital for water supply
Speaking exclusively to Libya Herald, the mayor of Zuwara Municipality, Hafez Ben Sassi, confirmed that the gas supply to the desalination plant in the city will have a clear positive impact on the continued supply of drinking water to the population. He said Zuwara suffers from problems in the continuous flow of fresh water to homes, which is interrupted due to the desalination station stopping due to the lack of fuel supplies.
Desalination plant built in late 1990’s
Referring to the age of the Zuwara desalination plant, he said it was built in the late 1990’s and was established in two phases. The first phase yielded water production capacity estimated at 40,000 cubic meters, with another 40,000 m3 in its second phase. This 80,000 m3 was intended to cover the drinking water needs of more than 400,000 Libyan citizens in the cities of Zuwara, Al-Ajailat, Al-Jamail, Raegdalen, Ziltan and Abu Kamash and Ras Jadir.
Desalination plant supplies wide area
Ben Sassi stressed that supplying the Zuwara desalination plant with natural gas is of importance in ensuring the continuity of the plant’s operation. This will ensure the continuity of supplying the city and its adjacent areas from Al-Ajailat in the east to Ras Jadir in the west with potable water while reducing the cost resulting from the consumption of diesel in the operation of the desalination plant.
Desalination plant stops working regularly due to interruption of diesel supplies
The mayor pointed out that citizens in Zuwara and the neighbouring cities buy water suitable for drinking and use in food at very high prices from private transporter tanks, and that this suffering occurs every time the desalination plant stops working due to the interruption of diesel supplies for various reasons.
He added that with the completion of the new gas line project from the Mellitah complex to the desalination plant, which is not far from it, the problems of supplying the city with water suitable for human use will end, and fresh, healthy, drinkable water will be available non-stop.
Need to complete pipeline urgently
in conclusion, he said he wished the Mellitah Oil and Gas Company, the National Oil Corporation and the executing contractor would speed up the implementation of this long-awaited project, in a short period of time, so that the story of the exploitation of citizens by some of the weak-minded owners of water transporter tanks ends.
