By John — Desalination News
Oman’s Al Ghubrah 3 desalination plant, the Sultanate’s largest water project, is now 93 percent complete and on track to begin supplying Muscat with drinking water in the second quarter of 2027, according to figures released by the Authority for Public Services Regulation (APSR) and reported by Oman Observer on November 10.
The RO 125 million ($325 million) reverse osmosis facility is being developed by Nama Power and Water Procurement Company, Oman’s state-owned power and water buyer, under a build-own-operate arrangement with a consortium of Spain’s GS Inima, Saudi Arabia’s Aljomaih Energy and Water Company, and Sogex Oman. Once online, the plant will produce 300,000 cubic metres of desalinated seawater a day, enough to cover roughly 188,000 water accounts, or about 54 percent of all accounts in Muscat Governorate, making it a central piece of the capital’s water security for the coming decades.
The project has moved in stages since Nama PWP signed the original RO 125 million agreement for the plant in May 2024, with construction formally breaking ground roughly a year later and LG Water Solutions brought in to supply the facility’s reverse-osmosis membranes. GS Inima, the lead technical partner, has built a long track record in the Gulf desalination market and was itself acquired by Abu Dhabi’s TAQA in a $1.2 billion deal in 2025 as the UAE utility giant pushed to expand its international water platform — a reminder that consolidation among the sector’s engineering and operating firms has, if anything, accelerated even as individual projects like Ghubrah 3 continue on their own multi-year construction timelines.
Beyond the headline construction figures, the APSR’s update also emphasized the project’s domestic economic footprint, a theme Gulf water authorities have increasingly stressed as they award large infrastructure contracts. Officials cited roughly RO 40 million in local content generated by the project, more than RO 1.5 million in direct participation from small and medium-sized enterprises, and close to 100 jobs for Omani nationals across the construction and future operations phases, with operational staffing projected to reach 94 percent Omanisation once the plant is running. That combination of water-security and workforce-development framing mirrors the pitch Oman and its neighbors have used across a wave of desalination investment this decade, as reverse osmosis has displaced older thermal technologies as the default means of securing municipal water supply in a region with negligible rainfall and fast-growing urban demand.
Muscat’s water needs have been climbing steadily as the city’s population and economy grow, and Nama PWP has signaled that Ghubrah 3 will not be the last large plant it brings forward; the authority has floated additional procurement for further capacity expansions in the years ahead as part of Oman’s broader water strategy. For now, the remaining seven percent of construction — largely finishing work on the reverse-osmosis trains, electrical systems and seawater intake and outfall infrastructure — will determine whether the project holds its second-quarter 2027 target, a deadline that will be watched closely given how central the plant has become to Muscat Governorate’s long-term supply planning.
(Source: Oman Observer)