Gov't signs engineering services deal for first phase of Red-Dead project

AMMAN — The Water Ministry on Sunday signed the engineering services agreement for the first phase of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project (Red-Dead).

"Under the agreement, an international consortium will provide technical, legal and financial services for the implementation of the first phase of the Red-Dead project," an official at the ministry told The Jordan Times on condition of anonymity.

The 4.2 million euro agreement is funded by a grant from the French government, the official highlighted.

On December 1, the ministry published a call for tenders in local and international newspapers for the implementation of the first phase of the Red-Dead project.

The ministry said in a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times on Sunday that it will start receiving bids from qualifying firms during the first quarter of next year.

The Red-Dead project’s main components are a seawater intake structure; an intake pump station; a seawater pipeline; a desalination plant with a capacity of 65-85 million cubic metres (mcm) per year; a desalination brine conveyance pipeline; two lifting pump stations; hydropower plants; and discharge facilities at the Dead Sea.

Jordan signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and Palestine in December 2013 to implement the first phase of the Red-Dead project. 

Under the memo, Palestine will receive 30mcm of freshwater to cover its water deficit, while Israel will buy its share of 50mcm of desalinated water from the project at cost value and sell Jordan the same amount of water in the northern Jordan Valley at a cost of JD0.27 per cubic metre.

In February this year, Jordan and Israel signed an agreement on the implementation of the project’s first phase.

The agreement drew up the guidelines for the main components of the scheme, including method and timeline, and also identified the mechanism to follow up on the project’s implementation and its social and environmental impacts, according to the ministry.

Under the first phase, a total of 300mcm of water will be pumped each year. In its following phases, the Red-Dead project entails transferring up to 2 billion cubic metres of seawater from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea annually, according to the ministry.

A total of 85-100mcm of water will be desalinated annually, while the seawater will be pumped out from an intake located in the north of the Gulf of Aqaba.

 In addition, a conveyor will be extended to transfer desalinated water as well as a pipeline to dump the brine into the Dead Sea to stop its constant decline, estimated at one metre every year.

The Kingdom will receive an additional 50mcm of water from the Lake Tiberias Reservoir annually to be added to Jordan’s share from the desalination station to provide Aqaba with water, according to the ministry.