Location
UAE / Middle East
Project record
Taweelah RO desalination intake and outfall system
Taweelah RO is an operating 200 MIGD seawater reverse-osmosis plant at Abu Dhabi's Al Taweelah complex. EWEC's current portfolio lists it as an existing 909,000 m3/day facility, while the 2024 Statistical Report records 297.16 million m3 of annual production and 0.91 million m3/day of available peak capacity from 2023 through 2025. ACWA's environmental appendices preserve the bid-stage marine design trail: proposed intake and outfall layouts, a 27.8 m3/s intake case and a 17.3 m3/s discharge case used for brine modelling. Those layouts establish a physical marine system at design stage, but the published operating material does not identify the final as-built alignment, marine contractor split, completion surveys or accepted hydraulic and environmental test results.
Segment
Marine utilities
Status
EWEC lists Taweelah RO as an existing 909,000 m3/day facility and records 297.16 million m3 of 2024 production; final as-built intake and outfall geometry is not publicly disclosed / Confirmed
Last checked
10 August 2026
Coverage
Related sectors
Marine utilities is the primary work classification. Related sectors connect this record to adjacent marine delivery and market coverage.
Subject index
Related subjects
These subject pages bring together related projects, technical articles, reports, and evidence methods.
Project anatomy
Contract scope and delivery roles
- Client / authority
- Taweelah RO Desalination Company; Emirates Water and Electricity Company as water offtaker
- Delivery parties
- SEPCOIII Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd and Abengoa Agua S.A. (EPC consortium), Acwa Operations Taweelah Water Desalination Services LLC (operations and maintenance)
- Contract route
- Build-own-operate independent water project under a 30-year water purchase agreement. ACWA holds 40% of the project company, with Mubadala and TAQA identified as the other investors on ACWA's current profile.
- Execution window
- The water purchase agreement was signed in 2019. ACWA's later corporate disclosures place first-phase operation in June 2022, an additional 379,000 m3/day entering commercial operation in April 2023, and commercial operations for the 200 MIGD project in Q1 2024. EWEC's 2024 Statistical Report independently records 0.91 million m3/day available at peak from 2023 onward and 297.16 million m3 of Taweelah RO production in 2024.
- Works package
- A USD 874 million, 200 MIGD seawater reverse-osmosis plant producing approximately 909,201 m3/day, with seawater abstraction, pretreatment, reverse osmosis, post-treatment, potable-water export and brine discharge. The bid-stage appendices modelled a proposed intake and outfall pipeline arrangement at 27.8 m3/s intake and 17.3 m3/s discharge.
- Marine interfaces
- The physical marine boundary runs from the seawater intake through the shoreline and plant hydraulic system to the brine outfall and receiving water. Bid-stage alternatives considered intake-channel and pipeline arrangements, construction dredging or trenching, pipeline laying, intake structures and coastal protection. Final installed geometry and quantities are absent from the published operating material.
- Commercial evidence boundary
- The open market is no longer a greenfield EPC opportunity. It sits in inspection, condition assessment, diffuser and pipeline maintenance, hydraulic troubleshooting, brine-plume monitoring, asset-life planning and any future capacity or shared-infrastructure change. Bid-stage drawings can orient that work but cannot replace current owner asset data.
Project timeline
Material developments
Dated events that changed scope, counterparties, delivery, commissioning or operating status.
Open this project in the Change LogEWEC publishes a full-year operating baseline
EWEC's current plant portfolio lists Taweelah RO as an existing 909,000 m3/day facility, while its 2024 Statistical Report records 297.16 million m3 of annual production and 0.91 million m3/day of available peak capacity for 2023, 2024 and 2025. These figures strengthen the operating baseline but do not establish final intake-outfall geometry, diffuser acceptance, marine-condition performance or project-specific receiving-water compliance.
SourceACWA places commercial operations in Q1 2024
The current project profile classifies the full 200 MIGD plant as commercially operating. That closes the project-level delivery phase but does not publish the final intake and outfall alignment or marine acceptance results.
SourceA further 379,000 m3/day entered commercial operation
ACWA's 2Q and 6M 2023 earnings presentation records an additional 379,000 m3/day in April, taking total operating capacity to 833,000 m3/day with 76,000 m3/day still to bring online.
SourceFirst desalination phase entered operation
ACWA's rights-issue chronology places first-phase water production in June 2022. This was an operating milestone for part of the scheme, not full-capacity completion of the 200 MIGD facility.
SourceWater purchase agreement established the IWP
ACWA's project archive records the 30-year agreement for the 909,200 m3/day scheme. Award and offtake created the delivery structure before marine construction and operating acceptance.
SourceEvidence gap
What remains unverified
Outstanding evidence
- Final as-built intake, outfall and shoreline-crossing drawings
- Marine contractor allocation, installation method and construction quantities
- Hydrographic, hydraulic, diffuser and recirculation acceptance results
- Current brine-plume and receiving-water monitoring against permit conditions
- Inspection, maintenance, cleaning and repair history for the operating marine assets
- Interaction with the shared Taweelah coastal intake, outfall and industrial discharge environment
Sources and related records
Read featured analysis Methodology Submit a correction Project tracker
Source collections
Project sources 8
- EWEC 2024 Statistical Report Emirates Water and Electricity Company, Published 2025; reviewed 10 August 2026
- EWEC existing-plant portfolio Emirates Water and Electricity Company, Current portfolio reviewed 10 August 2026
- Taweelah RO Desalination IWP project profile ACWA, Current profile reviewed 19 July 2026
- Taweelah IWP ESIA Volume 2 main report ACWA, 2019
- Taweelah IWP ESIA Volume 4 appendices ACWA / HR Wallingford, Bid-stage marine study reviewed 19 July 2026
- ACWA 2Q and 6M 2023 earnings presentation ACWA, 14 August 2023
- ACWA rights issue prospectus ACWA, 2025
- EWEC and ACWA sign the Taweelah IWP water purchase agreement ACWA, 16 September 2019