Moroccan companies bid to build Casablanca’s desalination plant

Morocco’s water department plans to announce the company that would build Casablanca’s desalination plant by year’s end, water and equipment minister Nizar Baraka said, adding that the competing companies include Moroccan ones.

Consecutive droughts emptied many Moroccan dams pushing the government to invest in desalination to free dam water for inner regions.

By 2030, Morocco will source 50% of its fresh water from desalination, up from 11% currently, Baraka said.

In November, King Mohammed VI urged the government to speed up the country’s renewable energy efforts which would power desalination plants.

Industry minister Ryad Mezzour – who was speaking together with Baraka at a meeting by the alliance of Istiqlal party economists- said that 70% of the equipment used in desalination plants in the country are made by Moroccan suppliers.

Between 1960 and 2020, the availability of renewable water resources decreased from 2,560 m3 to about 620 m3 per person per year, placing Morocco in what is considered a situation of “structural water stress”, The World Bank said in a recent report.