Toray wins two large orders in Bahrain and Spain to supply RO membranes for desalination plants

Toray Industries has won the order to supply reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for the Al Dur desalination plant in Bahrain. The Al Dur deal closely follows the order it won for the 500,000 m3/day Magtaa desalination plant in Algeria. The 218,000 m3/ day Al Dur SWRO plant is being developed as part of the Al-Dur Independent Water and Power Project. This is the largest project of its kind in Bahrain under a 20 year-contract between GDF Suez of France and the Electricity & Water Authority of Bahrain to supply water and power. Degrémont a subsidiary of Suez Environnement won the order to build the plant.

This is the first time that Toray is supplying its RO membranes to a large-scale desalination plant in Bahrain. The Al Dur Desalination Plant is second only to the recently announced Magtaa Seawater Desalination Plant in Algeria in terms of size, and the biggest in the Middle East using Toray membranes.  Toray also bagged the order to supplt RO membranes for the 98,600m3/day  Campo de Dalías Desalination Plant in Spain for which a consortium consisting of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies Ibérica, Veolia Agua, Sando Construcciones, Inypsa and Montajes Eléctricos Crescencio Pérez have signed a 15 year DBO (design, build and operate) contract.

Toray has also supplied RO membranes to the world’s largest urban sewage reuse plant in Sulaibiya, Kuwait (with a capacity of 320,000 m3/ day). Toray’s RO membranes process 1.2 million m3/day in sewage reuse globally.

The RO membrane market has been expanding at an annual rate exceeding 12%; demand is expected to grow at an annual rate of 30% in seawater and brine desalination applications as plant capacities expand. Further growth in demand for RO membranes is anticipated as new markets such as urban sewage and wastewater reuse plants are expanding in addition to the growth in industrial applications, such as production of water for use in boilers.

Toray has enhanced the production capacity of RO membrane elements at its existing facilities – Ehime Plant in Japan and Toray Membrane USA (TMUS) in the US - to address the growing demand. It established a joint venture company Toray BlueStar Membrane Co in Beijing with China National BlueStar (Group) in July 2009 to produce RO membranes. The facility under this joint venture is scheduled to start operations in April 2010. These expansions and the new facility will quadruple Toray’s RO membrane element production capacity.