A coastal desalination plant east of Beijing could provide a large portion of drinking water for the parched Chinese capital by 2019, the state media quoted officials as saying. 

 

The reports indicated that the government and state enterprises were investing heavily in desalination projects to alleviate a dire water shortage in northern China. 

 

The reports said the proposed plant, to be located in the city of Tangshan in Hebei province, had already been approved by a provincial development agency. The plan is to complete construction of the plant by 2019 and for it to supply one million tonnes of fresh water each day, which could account for one-third of the water consumption of Beijing, a city of more than 22 million people, officials said. 

 

The proposed plant would be the core of one of the biggest desalination projects in China. It is the proposed second phase of a desalination project that is run by a joint venture company, AQBEWG — formed by Aqualyng, a Norwegian firm, and Beijing Enterprises Water Group, a company listed in Hong Kong that is a subsidiary of a large company owned by the Beijing government. 

 

The first phase of the project, which is about 322km east of Beijing, in a district of Tangshan called Caofeidian, already produces about 50,000 tonnes of water each day for the district’s use, officials said. The water comes from the Bohai Gulf, just off the Yellow Sea in north-east China. 

 

The second, larger desalination plant would cost about 1.1 billion USD, and the pipelines to Beijing, which would run 270km, would cost 1.6 billion USD, the state media reports said. 

 

The price for the water in Beijing would be 1.29 USD pertonne, twice as much as the current price of tap water, the reports said.  

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