Water utility signs supply contracts with five Sonatrach desalination plants
ALGIERS — Algeria's national water utility, L'Algérienne des Eaux (ADE), has signed water sale and purchase contracts with five seawater desalination plants run by the Algerian Desalination Company (ADC), a subsidiary of the state energy group Sonatrach, the official APS news agency reported on Friday.
The contracts concern the plants of El Tarf, Béjaïa, Boumerdès, Tipasa and Oran. All five belong to the second complementary seawater desalination programme decided by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and entered service in early 2025.
The documents were signed on Thursday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Hydrocarbons in Algiers, under the supervision of the secretaries general of the hydrocarbons and finance ministries and the inspector general of the water resources ministry. ADE's director general signed alongside the chairmen of the boards of the five plants, according to an ADC statement relayed by APS.
The agreements are meant to secure the regular operation of the plants, preserve their technical availability and output, protect the public investment they represent and ensure continuity of the public water service. ADC presented them as the final stage of the contractual process between the producer and the distributor, and as a step towards closer coordination between water production and distribution in the service of national water security.
The statement did not disclose the plants' capacities, the volumes covered, the duration of the contracts or their financial terms.
Algeria has made seawater desalination a pillar of its water policy after successive droughts depleted dam reserves in the north and west of the country. The authorities have since launched several waves of large plants along the Mediterranean coast to supply the coastal cities where most of the population lives and to reduce dependence on rainfall.
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