Basic Cost Equations to Estimate Unit Production Costs for RO Desalination and Long-distance Piping to Supply Water to Tourism-dominated Arid Coastal Regions of Egypt

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Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

0011-9164/08/$– See front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

*Corresponding author.

Basic cost equations to estimate unit production costs for ROdesalination and long-distance piping to supply water to

tourism-dominated arid coastal regions of Egypt

A. Lameia*, P. van der Zaaga, E. von Münchb

aDepartment of Management and Institutions and bDepartment of Urban Water and Sanitation,UNESCO-IHE, Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands

Tel. +31 20123147852; Fax +31 2024019374; email: [email protected]

Received 11 August 2006; accepted 6 August 2007

Abstract

An arid climate with limited water resources and a growing tourism industry lead to water shortages in manycoastal zones. Due to increasing demand, alternatives have to be found, e.g. desalination and long-distance waterpiping (equal to or further than 30 km), ecological sanitation, wastewater reuse or water demand management. Thispaper presents a cost comparison for two options to supply water of drinking water quality: Option 1 — Desalinationwith the reverse osmosis technology, or Option 2 — Long-distance water piping from the Nile, for the case of thetourist city of Sharm El Sheikh (Sharm) at the Red Sea in South Sinai, Egypt. Available water resources and currentas well as future water demand figures for Sharm are presented. 91% of the current water demand stems fromtourism; water is supplied mainly by privately owned RO desalination plants (86%). To analyze costs for Option 1,we compiled RO desalination plant costs (capital and O&M) for 14 RO plants in Egypt and 7 elsewhere forcomparison. Unit production cost (US$/m3) of water from small RO desalination plants in Egypt is in most caseslower than international trends for similar small capacity plants (250 to 5,000 m3/d), but unit O&M costs are higher.For Option 2, we present cost data for four long-distance piping projects in Egypt which pump groundwater ortreated Nile water to cities in South Sinai including Sharm. We found that unit capital costs for those pipelineswhich are longer than 140 km, are in fact above the cost of a possible RO desalination plant at any flow capacity.For unit production cost, desalination costs are lower than long-distance piping starting from pipelines with 300 kmlength or more and capacity ≥2000 m3/d. Empirical basic cost equations are produced to calculate unit capital cost(US$/m3/d) and unit production cost (US$/m3) for both options in dependence of capacity for Option 1, and capacityand pipe length for Option 2. This paper is part of a more comprehensive research project to develop a decisionsupport system for integrated water resources management in tourism-dominated arid coastal regions.

Keywords: Water demand; Capital and O&M costs; Sharm El Sheikh; Nile water

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2007.08.003

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2 A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

1. Introduction

The Middle East and North Africa regions notonly have the world’s lowest per capita availabil-ity of water resources but also the highest rate ofreduction in these resources [1]. Water scarcity isparticularly increasing in those coastal zoneswhich are characterized by an arid climate (lessthan 100 mm rainfall per year), and a thriving tour-ism industry with a high water demand through-out the year. Egypt (with a current population of78 million) is among those countries which faceserious water scarcity [2]. It is located furthestdownstream in the Nile basin with an extremelyarid climate. The annual share of Egypt from Nilewater is 56 billion m3. The average per capita shareis 711 m3/cap/a [3].

In South Sinai, which is on the Red Sea inEgypt (Fig. 1), tourism is the dominating indus-try. In this region, rainfall is extremely low; SharmEl Sheikh (Sharm) has an annual rainfall between20–50 mm/y [4].

This region is facing continuous economicgrowth which requires higher water consumption.The shortfall between water demand and wateravailability is expected to reach 365 Mm3/y inSouth Sinai and along the Red Sea coast by theyear 2020 [5]. Since conventional surface andgroundwater resources are limited, water can besourced by either RO desalination of sea or brack-ish water, or by long-distance tanker trucks or apipeline (long-distance defined here as equal toor further than 30 km). Other options to addressthe expected water shortfall could be an ecologi-cal sanitation approach including water demandmanagement and wastewater reuse. RO desalina-tion is increasingly being used to address thisshortfall in this region.

The scope of this paper is limited to analysisof two options; Option 1: RO desalination andOption 2: Long-distance piping (≥30 km). Thesetwo options are currently the most important onesin the city of Sharm.

For both options we developed basic cost equa-tions to be used by decision-makers, and we com-

pared the costs in Egypt to world-wide trends forOption 1. The research presented in this paper ispart of a more comprehensive research project todevelop a decision support system for integratedwater resources management in arid coastal re-gions [6]. All cost figures quoted in this paper arein US$ of 2001 (unless otherwise indicated) cal-culated based on the United States Consumer PriceIndex, (http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/index.cfm#calc). The base year 2001 wasused here because this was the year used in [7]for the extensive data set on costs of RO desali-nation plants.

2. Water demand in Sharm

Data on water resources and demand in thecity of Sharm presented here were obtained fromSinai Development Authority which is concernedwith the development of the Sinai region, in termsof provision of clean water, wastewater treatmentand road construction. The data in this section wastaken from [8] unless otherwise indicated.

Sharm is a prosperous Red Sea resort remotefrom the Nile. There are (in May 2006) 65 hotelsin Sharm mostly falling in the 3–5 star category,and 63 more hotels under construction within thecity limits. Future construction will be outside thecity limits. Each year, over one million touristsfrom Egypt and abroad visit Sharm. The currentpermanent population of Sharm is about 25,000.Annual growth rate for the local population isabout 3.8%.

Fig. 2 shows current water production in Sharmin 2006 from different sources with a total of69,300 m3/d (86% of this is obtained via RO de-salination plants). There are also two long-dis-tance water pipelines, one to transport treatedgroundwater from El Tor (100 km away) and theother to transport treated Nile water from Suez(368 km away) to Sharm. However, at present,the latter pipe is used instead to transport ground-water from El Tor city (no Nile water is currentlybeing transported to Sharm). A pipeline is cur-

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A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12 3

Fig. 1. Map of Egypt showing location of Sharm and major water pipeline (http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng).

rently under construction to double the capacityof the pipeline conveying Nile water from Suezto Sharm (Table 3). A small amount of ground-water is also transported from El Tor to Sharm bytanker trucks.

91% of the current average water demand inSharm is from the tourism industry (includinghotels, restaurants, bars, shops, staff housing andlandscape irrigation). The remaining 9% of thewater demand is from the domestic population.

The total number of tourist-related buildings isapproximately 200.

Water demand in tourism-dominated coastalregions is proportional to hotel room occupancyrates which vary according to time of the yearand marketing efforts of each hotel. The conven-tional tourist uses huge amounts of water so thatthe equivalent tourist water consumption rangesfrom 300 to 850 l/d per occupied bed dependingon individual hotel facilities and services, occu-

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4 A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

52,500

7,8007,000 2,000

Privately-owned ROplants Piped groundwater

Government-owned ROplants Trucked groundwater(from AL Tor)

Fig. 2. Average water production in Sharm for 2006 fromdifferent resources (in m3/d).

pancy rates, temperature, staff housing and irri-gated area [9].

The current annual increase in water demanddue to construction of new hotels in Sharm is 11%per annum. This is expected to slow down in thenear future to be about 5% per annum. Shortagesare therefore estimated to reach 3 Mm3/y forSharm by the year 2010 [4].

To meet this rapidly growing water demand,city planners are now considering two main op-tions (RO desalination or long-distance piping)or a combination of these. Basic cost equationsfor these two options are presented below. Otherinnovative options are outside the scope of thispaper as explained earlier.

3. Option 1: Reverse osmosis desalination(basic cost equations)

RO desalination used to be considered a veryexpensive technology. However, recent advancesin RO desalination technology and larger capac-ity plants are reducing the production costs percubic meter.

Hafez and El-Manharawy [5] compiled RO

desalination costs from five plants (capacity rang-ing from 250 to 4,800 m3/d) in South Sinai inEgypt and compared them to costs from sevenother plants (capacity ranging from 7,000 to50,000 m3/d) in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia andCyprus. The authors reached the conclusion thatunit capital and unit O&M costs of RO desalina-tion plants in Egypt are more expensive thanworldwide trends. We do not agree with this find-ing as will be shown below.

Another more comprehensive source of desali-nation plant costs is given in [7]. The report as-sumes that unit production costs (in $/m3) can besplit up into 40% for annual cost of capital perunit and 60% for unit O&M costs.

We used data from [5] together with our owndata and available literature to compare RO costsin Egypt with international costs.

Table 1 shows a compilation of costs for 14desalination plants in Egypt, (13 of which are inSouth Sinai region), and seven other plants out-side of Egypt in the Mediterranean region andSaudi Arabia. The breakdown of total investmentcost into RO plant cost (i.e. intake system, pre-treatment, RO desalination, post-treatment, brinedisposal and engineering) and infrastructure cost(cost of land, building and site work) is providedfor those plants where this information was avail-able.

The annuity factor, a, was determined fromthe following equation:

(1 )(1 ) 1

n

n

i iai

× +=

+ − (1)

where i is the discount rate (we used 8%) and n isthe economic plant life (we used 10 year lifetimefor the RO plant equipment and 20 year lifetimefor infrastructure).

The annual cost of capital can then be calcu-lated by multiplying the investment cost with theannuity factor a. To convert this to a unit cost, itis further divided by annual output of the plant(assumed 90% of capacity).

Page 5

A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12 5Ta

ble

1R

O d

esal

inat

ion

cost

s in

Egyp

t and

in th

e M

edite

rran

ean

regi

on a

nd S

audi

Ara

bia

(all

in 2

001

US$

)

a Div

ided

by

Qw n

ot b

y 90

%.Q

w;

b Equ

als R

O in

vest

men

t cos

t mul

tiplie

d by

annu

ity fa

ctor

from

Eq.

(1) (

10 y

ears

life

time,

plu

s inf

rast

ruct

ure i

nves

tmen

t cos

t mul

tiplie

d by

annu

ity fa

ctor

(20

year

s life

time)

, all

divi

ded

by a

nnua

l pro

duct

ion

(90%

of Q

w)c E

stim

ated

O&

M is

60%

of u

nit p

rodu

ctio

n co

st [7

]

Inve

stm

ent (

mill

ion

$)

No.

C

apac

ity

(m3 /d

) (Q

w)

Loca

tion

Yea

r of

com

mis

s-io

ning

R

O

Infra

-str

uctu

re

Tota

l U

nit

capi

tal

cost

sa

($/m

3 /d)

(Cc)

Ann

ual

cost

of

capi

tal p

er

unitb

($/m

3 )

Estim

ated

un

it O

&M

cost

sc

($/m

3 )

Act

ual

unit

O&

M

cost

s ($

/m3 )

Uni

t pro

-du

ctio

n co

sts

with

esti

mat

ed

O&

M ($

/m3 )

(Cp)

Uni

t pro

-du

ctio

n co

sts

with

act

ual

O&

M ($

/m3 )

(Cp)

Ref

eren

ce

C

1 C

2 C

3 C

4 C

5 C

6 =

C

4 +

C5

C7

= C

6/C

1 C

8 C

9 =

C

8* 0

.6

C10

C

11 =

C

8 +

C9

C12

=

C8

+ C

10

For c

ol.

C1–

C6

and

C10

1

250

Hur

gada

(E

gypt

) N

/A

0.40

0.

01

0.40

16

59

0.74

1.

12

2.47

1.

86

3.21

[5

]

2 30

0 N

uwei

ba

(Egy

pt)

N/A

N

/A

N/A

0.

59

1961

0.

89

1.33

0.

93

2.22

1.

82

[8]

3 35

0 R

ed S

ea (E

gypt

) 20

04

N/A

N

/A

0.33

95

0 0.

43

0.65

0.

93

1.08

1.

36

[11]

4

500

Safa

ga (E

gypt

) N

/A

0.77

0.

03

0.77

16

05

0.72

1.

08

2.22

1.

80

2.94

[5

] 5

500

Hur

ghad

a (E

gypt

) 19

97

N/A

N

/A

0.54

10

74

0.49

0.

73

0.93

1.

22

1.42

[1

2]

6 50

0 M

atro

uh

(Egy

pt)

1998

0.

33

0.14

0.

33

941

0.39

0.

58

0.87

0.

97

1.25

[1

2]

7 50

0 D

ahab

(Egy

pt)

1995

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

N/A

2.

57

[4]

8 60

0 Ta

ba (E

gypt

) 19

86

N/A

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

N/A

N

/A

2.95

[4

] 9

2,00

0 El

Tor

(Egy

pt)

N/A

2.

41

0.22

2.

41

1313

0.

58

0.87

1.

65

1.45

2.

23

[5]

10

3,50

0 Sh

arm

(Egy

pt)

N/A

4.

27

0.25

4.

27

1291

0.

58

0.86

1.

51

1.44

2.

08

[5]

11

4,00

0 G

ulf o

f Aqa

bah

(Egy

pt)

1995

N

/A

N/A

6.

46

1614

0.

73

1.10

0.

93

1.83

1.

67

[12]

12

4,00

0 Sh

arm

(Egy

pt)

1998

N

/A

N/A

7.

03

1756

0.

80

1.20

1.

23

1.99

2.

02

[4]

13

4,80

0 H

urga

da

(Egy

pt)

N/A

4.

23

0.78

4.

23

1044

0.

45

0.68

1.

10

1.13

1.

55

[5]

14

5,00

0 H

urga

da

(Egy

pt)

1997

5.

35

1.45

6.

80

1360

0.

58

0.86

0.

97

1.44

1.

54

[12]

15

7,00

0 Li

bya

N/A

N

/A

N/A

7.

92

1131

0.

51

0.77

0.

70

1.28

1.

21

[5]

16

10,0

00

Tuni

s N

/A

N/A

N

/A

9.62

96

2 0.

44

0.65

0.

74

1.09

1.

18

[5]

17

15,0

00

Saud

i Ara

bia

N/A

N

/A

N/A

13

.56

904

0.41

0.

62

0.74

1.

03

1.15

[5

] 18

20

,000

Sa

udi A

rabi

a N

/A

N/A

N

/A

16.6

4 83

2 0.

38

0.57

0.

66

0.94

1.

04

[5]

19

30,0

00

Saud

i Ara

bia

N/A

N

/A

N/A

23

.64

788

0.36

0.

54

0.57

0.

89

0.93

[5

] 20

40

,000

C

ypru

s N

/A

N/A

N

/A

28.5

2 71

3 0.

32

0.49

0.

57

0.81

0.

89

[5]

21

50,0

00

Cyp

rus

N/A

N

/A

N/A

33

.35

667

0.30

0.

45

0.56

0.

76

0.86

[5

]

Page 6

6 A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs in-clude pretreatment and post-treatment chemicals,membrane replacement, energy, labour, brine dis-posal and administration (a detailed breakdownfor some plants is provided in Table 2. Unit pro-duction cost ($/m3) is a summation of the annualcost of capital ($/a) divided by the annual outputof plant (m3/a), plus annual O&M costs ($/a) di-vided by annual plant output (m3/a).

From Table 1 it can be seen that unit produc-tion costs are high compared to what is currentlythe industry standard (about 0.5–1 US$/m3). Thiscan be attributed to the fact that most of theseplants are quite old (they were built in the 1990’s)and that they are small in size. Regarding O&M,actual values of O&M are higher than the esti-mated O&M costs except for plants number 2, 11and 15. It appears that for smaller plants(<5,000 m3/d) the estimation of unit O&M costsvia the 60% of investment cost value under esti-mates actual unit O&M costs. Another explana-tion could be that, for reasons described in Table 2,

Table 2Comparison between RO desalination O&M unit costs in Egypt and other countries (normalized to 2001 US$)

aThe higher the capacity, the cheaper the labour is;bThe higher the capacity, the cheaper labour and maintenance are.

Greece [13] Egypta [12] Arid developing countries in Asiab [14]

Recovery rate, % 38 30 N/A Range of plant capacities, m3/d 500–10,000 500–5,000 1,200–18,000 Specific energy consumption, kWh/m3 5.00 6.5–9.0 8.61 Electricity cost, $/kWh 0.11 0.06 0.05 Electricity total cost, $/m3 0.55 0.39-0.54 0.45 Chemicals consumption, kg/m3 0.28 0.43 N/A Chemicals cost, $/kg 0.18 0.52 N/A Chemicals total cost, $/m3 0.05 0.23 0.04 Membrane replacement rate, % 12 10 20 Membrane replacement cost, $/m3 0.06 0.21 0.19 Labour, $/m3 0.18 0.16–0.17 0.04–0.08 Maintenance & repair, $/m3 N/A 0.08 0.08–0.16 Other, % of operation cost 10 N/A N/A Total, $/m3 0.94 1.08–1.12 0.81–0.93 Cost of electricity, % of total 59 36–49 48–55

the unit O&M costs in Egypt are simply higherthan international trends.

Fig. 3 shows a comparison between unit pro-duction costs of RO plants as listed in [7] withcosts of plants presented in this paper. This figureshows that the unit production cost of RO desali-nation in Egypt is comparable or even lower thaninternational plants (using estimated or actualO&M figures, respectively). This is contrary tothe findings in [5] that unit production costs ofRO desalination plants in Egypt are higher thanworldwide. Those authors did not compare theRO plants in Egypt (250–5,000 m3/d) with simi-lar plant capacities but with larger ones (7,000–50,000 m3/d).

Table 2 shows a breakdown of O&M unit costsin Egypt and internationally, taking an examplefrom Greece and some developing countries inAsia.

From Table 2 the following observations aremade when comparing values of Greece andEgypt:

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A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12 7

Fig. 3. RO unit production costs vs. plant capacity (world-wide data set from [7] and data from Table 1).

• Energy consumption for RO plants in Egyptis high but the cost of electricity is much lower;

• More chemicals are used in the case of Egypt;• The cost of electricity for all cases ranges from

36 to 59% of total O&M costs. Hence, it maybe attractive to use solar energy to ensuresustainability and reduce costs [15].

• Membrane replacement cost is higher in Egyp-tian RO plants, due to the costs of importingchemicals and membranes.

When comparing RO plants in Egypt to otherexamples from developing countries in Asia (asshown in Table 2), one can conclude that the val-ues are similar for the energy, membrane replace-ment, maintenance and repair cost componentsbut are higher with respect to the chemicals andlabour components.

It can be concluded from Tables 1 and 2 thatO&M costs in Egypt did not follow the estima-tion of [7], via the 60% of unit production costvalue, most likely due to small plant capacitiesand relatively high chemical and labour costs.

We used two equations to calculate unit capi-tal cost and unit production cost (using actualO&M) for RO plants in dependence of capacityfor plants listed in this paper (21 plants in Egyptand world-wide) as shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

52 101340.9exp wQcC

−− ×= (2)

0.176.25p wC Q −= (3)

Cc is unit capital cost in $/m3/d; Cp is unit pro-duction cost in $/m3 (equal to annual cost of capi-tal plus actual annual O&M costs and both di-vided by annual output) and Qw is capacity ex-pressed as flow rate of product water in m3/d.

Costs for future RO plants are mainly depen-dent on local factors such as energy costs, quali-fied labour, source and quality of intake water.The equations proposed here are meant as an in-dication for costs of RO plants in the capacityrange of 250–50,000 m3/d for Egypt.

Fig. 4. RO unit capital cost for all 21 RO plants listed inTable 1 (in 2001 US$).

Fig. 5. Unit production costs for all 21 RO plants listedin Table 1 (in 2001 US$).

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8 A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

4. Option 2: Long-distance piping. Basic costequations

The cost of transporting potable water by pipe-line is mainly dependent on distance, elevationdifference, soil conditions, labour costs, electric-ity costs, and spare parts costs. It is therefore dif-ficult to compare pipeline construction costs fromone location to another. The most accurate costestimate is obtained after first carrying out a con-cept design for the project. In this paper, we nev-ertheless propose a relationship for unit capitaland unit O&M costs independent of distance andcapacity, based on the specific case of pumpingtreated water from various locations along the Nilebranches to the South Sinai region (a maximumdistance of 450 km). Nile water is treated throughsedimentation, sand filtration and then chlorina-tion before being pumped through long-distancepiping to its destination.

The soil conditions in this region are mainlysandy soil; there are hills in the area up to 200 mwhich can be mostly by-passed.

According to our knowledge, there are no pub-lications on the current cost of water transporta-tion by pipelines in Egypt or comparable loca-tions. Zhou and Tol [16] state that little has beenpublished on costs of transporting water over longdistances. Nevertheless, many authors have em-phasized that unit production costs of desalina-tion are competitive with those of long-distancewater piping [4,17]. Zhou and Tol [16] presenteda comparison of transportation costs gathered fromliterature. They mention that the most detailedanalysis is that of [18]. However, this publicationis based mostly on much older reports. Using [18],Zhou and Tol [16] estimated costs of transportingdesalinated water inland. In this paper we pro-vide more recent and detailed cost data for long-distance piping.

The author of [18] divided transportation cost(which is equivalent to unit production cost) intohorizontal and vertical distance, with costs of6.1 cent/m3 per 100 km horizontal distance, and5.2 cent/m3 for lifting the water 100 m (1993 US$,

not adjusted to 2001). These costs are for transferin an open canal in soft but stable soil. Transport-ing water by pipeline would lead to an increase incost by 271%, and if the soil is sandy, costs wouldbe higher by further 175% according to [18]. Pipe-lines are preferred over canals to reduce waterlosses especially in highly permeable soils [3].

A pipeline from Suez to supply Sharm (alongwith other main cities on the Gulf of Aqabah) withtreated Nile water was constructed in three stagesof 168, 100 and 100 km respectively in 1986, 1997and 1998. Table 3 shows details of this projecttogether with other long-distance water pipingprojects in Egypt. Water treatment costs are in-cluded as part of the transportation costs for pipes5 and 7, as the original document showed the in-vestment costs for the treatment and the pipingprojects as a lump sum. The annual cost of capi-tal is calculated using 30 years lifetime, and a dis-count rate of 8%. All costs are normalized to theUS$ of 2001.

A multiple linear regression (MLR) was per-formed on the data presented in Table 3 to corre-late unit capital and unit production costs withlength and capacity of the pipelines. The follow-ing two relationships were obtained (see Figs. 6and 7):

49 18.5 0.04c wC L Q= + − (4)

50.04 0.01 10p wC L Q−= + − (5)

Cc is unit capital cost in $/m3/d; Cp is unit produc-tion cost in $/m3; L is length in km; and Qw iscapacity in m3/d.

The cost equations for Option 2 assume thatthe source water requires either no treatment oronly minimal conventional treatment (sedimen-tation, sand filtration and chlorination in the caseof the Nile water) and these costs are included inthe empirical cost equations. The proposed costrelationship should also hold for other locationswith similar characteristics and similar labourcosts as the one described above.

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A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12 9

Tabl

e 3

Cos

ts o

f lon

g-di

stan

ce p

ipin

g pr

ojec

ts in

Sou

th S

inai

, Egy

pt (n

orm

aliz

ed to

200

1 U

S$).

Dat

a sou

rce i

s [8]

exce

pt fo

r pip

e no.

9 w

hich

is ta

ken

from

[19]

a Equ

als C

7 m

ultip

lied

with

ann

uity

fact

or a

[fro

m E

q. (1

)] a

nd d

ivid

ed b

y Q

w

No.

Le

ngth

(k

m)

(L)

Star

t and

en

d po

ints

(city

)

Type

of

sour

ce

wat

er

Dia

-m

eter

(m

m)

Capa

city

(m

3 /d)

(Qw)

Yea

r (en

d of

co

nstru

ctio

n)

Inve

st-m

ent c

ost

(mln

$)

Uni

t ca

pita

l co

st ($

/m3 /d

) (C

c)

Ann

ual c

ost

of c

apita

l pe

r uni

ta

($/m

3 )

Uni

t O

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/A

Page 10

10 A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12

If the equations of [18] are followed (after be-ing normalized to the US$ 2001), then the unitproduction cost of transporting water by a pipe-line in a sandy soil is 1.28 $/m3 (distance of 368km and elevation height taken as 100 m to ac-count for differences in elevation along the way).This figure is similar but lower than the 1.9 $/m3

obtained using Eq. (5) with length (L) equal to368 km and capacity (Qw) equal to 15,000 m3/d.

Fig. 6. Unit capital costs (Cc) of RO desalination and long distance piping vs. capacity and pipe length.

Fig. 7. Unit production costs (Cp) of RO desalination and long distance piping vs. capacity and pipe length.

5. Comparison of costs

Figs. 6 and 7 show unit capital and unit pro-duction costs respectively for both Option 1 (ROdesalination) and Option 2 (long distance piping),using Eqs. (2) and (3) for Option 1 and Eqs. (4)and (5) for Option 2.

These figures show that unit capital costs forthose pipelines which are longer than 140 km are

Page 11

A. Lamei et al. / Desalination 225 (2008) 1–12 11

above the cost of a possible RO desalination plantat any flow capacity. For unit production cost onthe other hand, desalination costs are lower thanlong-distance piping starting from a pipelinelength of at least 300 km and plant capacity of atleast 2000 m3/d. Another example is that for a 350km distance, desalination costs are lower than longdistance piping for a plant capacity of 500 m3/dor greater.

Depending on capacity and length of the pipe-line, RO desalination can be comparable and evencheaper to long-distance piping. The real cost oflong-distance piping is expected to be higher ifthe cost of Nile water is factored in. However, itneeds to be pointed out that RO desalination canhave some negative environmental impact due tohigh energy consumption per m3 production andbrine containing high salt concentrations andchemicals.

6. Conclusions

This paper provides an indication of the costsof RO desalination and long-distance piping inEgypt and elsewhere. Both options are meant toprovide water of potable quality. The cost equa-tions for Option 2 assume that the source waterrequires either no treatment or only minimal con-ventional treatment (sedimentation, sand filtrationand chlorination in the case of the Nile water) andthese costs are included in the empirical cost equa-tions.

Unit production costs of RO plants in Egyptare comparable to plants of similar capacity (above600 m3/d) in [7]. Earlier observation that RO de-salination costs in Egypt are higher than interna-tional trends [5] is not valid as plant capacitieswere not taken into consideration (Egyptian ROplants being generally smaller than 5,000 m3/d).However, it should be noted that current standardindustry unit production costs are much lower(about 0.5–1 US$/m3) than quoted figures in thispaper. Most of the quoted desalination plants in

this paper are quite old (they were built in the1990’s) and they are small in size.

Actual O&M costs are higher in Egypt thanthe estimated O&M costs (taken as 60% of unitproduction cost as suggested in [7]). It is impor-tant to consider the O&M costs relative to capac-ity/output of the plant when estimating costs offuture desalination plants.

Basic empirical cost equations were proposedto estimate RO costs and costs of long-distancepiping in Egypt. The boundary of applicabilityfor the RO cost equations is a plant capacity be-tween 250–50,000 m3/d, and for the long distancepiping equations a pipe capacity up to 65,000 m3/d, length up to 450 km, and soil and ground con-ditions similar to South Sinai.

RO desalination can be cheaper than long dis-tance piping depending on capacity (of RO plantor pipeline) and length of pipeline. However, ROdesalination can have some negative environmen-tal impacts which have to be examined beforeconsidering the construction of new plants. Moresustainable water supply options such as reuse oftreated wastewater and water demand manage-ment should also be considered for the develop-ment of South Sinai.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Prof. Magdy AbouRayan, Mansoura University, Egypt and Mr.Ibrahim Khaled, Sinai Development Authority,Egypt for the critical review of this paper and forkindly providing valuable data, respectively.

References[1] M. El Fadel and I. Alameddine, Desalination in arid

regions: Merits and concerns. Aqua, 54 (2005) 449–461.

[2] CIA, Egypt people: World Fact book. http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/egypt/egypt_people.html,2005.

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[3] M. Elarabawy, B. Attia and P. Tosswell, Integratedwater resources management for Egypt. Aqua, 49(3)(2000) 111–125.

[4] M. Abou Rayan, B. Djebedjian and I. Khaled, Wa-ter supply and demand and a desalination option forSinai, Egypt. Desalination, 136 (2001) 73–82.

[5] A. Hafez and S. El-Manharawy, Economics of sea-water desalination in the Red Sea region, Egypt. Part1. A case study. Desalination, 153 (2002) 335–347.

[6] A. Lamei, E. von Münch and P. van der Zaag, Wa-ter supply and demand forecasting models for thetourism industry in arid coastal regions: Sharm ElSheikh, Egypt, presented at IWA World Water Con-gress and Exhibition, Beijing, China, 2006.

[7] The Global Water Intelligence, The 2006 IDAWorldwide Desalting Plants Inventory Report No.19, http://www.globalwaterintel.com, 2006.

[8] I. Khaled, Personal communication. Sinai Develop-ment Authority, 2006.

[9] A. Lamei, E. von Münch, E. Imam and P. van derZaag, A model for calculation of water demand bythe tourism industry. Integrated Water ResourcesManagement Conference and Challenges of theSustainable Development (Moroccan Committee ofthe International Association of Hydrogeologists),Marrakech, Morraco, 2006.

[10] WRA, Reverse Osmosis Desalination Model, Florida,USA, 2002.

[11] A.E.M. Abou Zeid, Personal communication. Esh-petco Petroleum Company, 2006.

[12] M. Abou Rayan, B. Djebedjian and I. Khaled, Da-tabase establishment for the evaluation of the effec-tiveness and performance of desalination equipmentin the Arab Republic of Egypt. Report, MansouraUniversity, Mansura, Egypt, 2003.

[13] D. Voivontas, G. Arampatzis, E. Maoli, C. Karavitisand D. Assimacopoulous, Water supply modelingtowards sustainable environmental management insmall islands: the case of Paros, Greece. Desalina-tion, 156 (2003) 127–135.

[14] UNEP, Source book of alternatives for freshwateraugmentation in some countries in Asia. http://www.unep.or.jp/ietc/publications/techpublications/techpub-8e/desalination.asp, 2000.

[15] A. Lamei, P. van der Zaag and E. von Münch, Whencan solar energy be cost effective for RO desalina-tion in arid countries like Egypt? Submitted to IDAWorld Congress on Desalination and Water Reuse,Gran Canaria, Spain, 2007.

[16] Y. Zhou and R. Tol, Evaluating the costs of desali-nation and water transport. Water Resour. Res., 41(2005) W03003.

[17] Water Corporation, Kimberley Pipeline Project,Sustainability Review, 2004.

[18] E. Kally, Water and Peace: Water Resources and theArab–Israeli Peace Process, Greenwood, 1993.

[19] M. Abou Rayan, B. Djebedjian and I. Khaled, De-salination option within water demand managementand supply for Red Sea coast in Egypt. Seventh In-ternational Water Technology Conference, Cairo,Egypt, 2003.