First phase of Asaluyeh desalination plant goes on stream
Iran has brought online the first phase of a desalination plant in the southern province of Bushehr, with initial production capacity of 5,000 cubic meters of water per day, Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi said on Tuesday.
The facility, located in Asaluyeh, will eventually double output to 10,000 cubic meters per day using domestic expertise, Aliabadi said at a commissioning ceremony, according to ISNA.
Construction began in March and reached the operational stage in under a year, a timeline the minister described as an example of effective project management. He said Iran would tap all available capacity to produce drinking water through desalination, relying on local technology and know-how, with further expansion planned in later phases.
Aliabadi said the plant uses reverse osmosis (RO) technology and is equipped with self-cleaning pretreatment systems to boost efficiency and extend equipment lifespan.
The project is part of a broader push to address Iran’s severe drought. Bushehr province, with its extensive coastline and the concentration of much of the country’s oil, gas and petrochemical industries in the Asaluyeh region, holds significant potential for developing desalination facilities and using seawater as a sustainable water source. The Energy Ministry has made expanding desalination facilities a key strategy for tapping non-conventional water resources, including large-scale transfers of desalinated water from the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf to eastern and southern regions. A nationwide program launched in 2021 includes five desalinated seawater transfer lines to help ease water shortages.
As of July, Iran’s total desalination capacity exceeded 658,000 cubic meters per day, according to Hashem Amini, head of the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company. Amini said in mid-July that 109 desalination projects were in operation, under construction, or in the planning stages across 14 provinces, playing a role in stabilizing drinking water supplies, especially in coastal and water-scarce areas.