Veolia to build world’s second largest desalination plant in Morocco

Morocco picked French firm Veolia to build the largest desalination plant in Africa and the world’s second largest, as the country seeks to address water-stress challenges.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in that connection between Morocco’s interior ministry and Veolia, on the sidelines of the visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Morocco at the invitation of King Mohammed VI.

The plant will be built near Rabat on the Atlantic as part of a public-private partnership. Under the MoU, Veolia will build, finance and operate the plant for 35 years, the company said in a statement.

The plant will have a capacity of 822,000 m3 of drinking water per day, or 300 million m3 per year. It will supply drinking water to the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra and Fès-Meknès regions to meet the water needs of nearly 9.3 million people.