Sulaibiya Wastewater Reuse
Wastewater RO/UF reuse, 600,000 m3/day after expansion (original design 425,000 m3/day) in Kuwait.
Landmark Municipal sewage pushed through reverse osmosis at 600,000 m3/day, among the largest reuse schemes anywhere.
The record
- Country
- Kuwait
- Location
- Sulaibiya
- Coordinates
- 29.248, 47.713
- Technology
- Wastewater RO/UF reuse
- Capacity
- 600,000 m3/day after expansion (original design 425,000 m3/day)
- Capital cost
- US$390 million
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- Ministry of Public Works, Kuwait (30-year BOT concession held by Utilities Development Company, a Kharafi and GE Water joint venture)
- Developer
- Kharafi Group / Ionics
- Contractor
- Kharafi Group and Ionics (original plant); Kharafi National (expansion to 600,000 m3/day)
- Operator
- Utilities Development Company (Kharafi operates the wastewater plant, Ionics/GE the reclamation plant)
- Finance
- BOT, 30-year concession from July 2002; original plant financed by domestic banks
- Award or start year
- 2002
- Commissioned
- 2004
Record last checked 2026-09-04.
History
- 2002-07
Contract awarded and 30-year concession begins
- 2004-11
Construction completed and plant enters operation
- 2010
US$150 million expansion contract awarded to Kharafi National
- 2012-01
Council of Ministers approves expansion to 600,000 m3/day
- 2015-02
GE membrane upgrade for expansion from 375,000 to 600,000 m3/day announced
Sources
5 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- MEED, Approval granted for Kuwait wastewater plant expansion, 10 January 2012. meed.com.
- MEED, Sulaibiya sewage plant, 2 May 2017. meed.com.
- GE, Kuwait's Sulaibiya plant to set new global benchmark after upgrade with GE's advanced water reuse technology, 17 February 2015. ge.com.
- WaterWorld, Sulaibiya water reuse project begins full operations, 1 December 2004. waterworld.com.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Position (round 8 correction, 20 Oct 2026): the previous point (29.28, 47.80) was the centre of the Sulaibiya Agricultural district, not the plant. The plant is now placed at the centre of the OpenStreetMap wastewater-plant polygon (way 372832171) in the Sulaibiya area, about 0.84 km2, which matches the 850,000 m2 site size given by Gulf Construction Online; a second OpenStreetMap node, 'MEW Water Recycling Plant' (node 3656327095), lies 1.7 km away. Neither OpenStreetMap feature carries the name Sulaibiya, so the match rests on site size and on the 25 km pipeline from the Ardiya pretreatment works reported by WaterWorld, and is approximate; no official coordinates were found