With a number of legal challenges still cluttering the path towards construction of a desalination plant set back from Praia da Falésia, in Albufeira, promoters Águas do Algarve are moving forwards with land expropriations, much to the enormous disappointment of owners.
One told us that part of the meadow in which her donkeys graze is being used for the project, with the princely sum of €63.77 being paid to ‘compensate’ for the shock of losing property she and her husband purchased, in good faith. The woman is beside herself with sadness, describing the trees and nature being uprooted for a project that she, like many others, feels is only going to cause environmental harm.
But while these events take their course, so too are things in the world of big business.
TAQA, one of the world’s largest companies in the utilities sector, has just announced that it has closed a deal to purchase Spain’s GS Inima, the ‘partner company’ to Aquapor in the joint venture that won the public tender to build the desalination plant, for the revised (upwards) costing of €107.92.
In a statement released this week, TAQA said the agreement provides for the acquisition of 100% of GS Inima, owned by Korean multinational GS E&C, and described as ‘one of the most important desalination companies in the global market’.
Based in Madrid, GS Inima has around 50 active projects, including approximately 30 long-term public-private partnerships (PPPs), in a portfolio covering desalination and water treatment (including industrial water and wastewater treatment technologies).
According to TAQA, the acquisition, valued at approximately $1.2 billion (€1.02 billion at current exchange rates), will enable it to ‘significantly accelerate the Group’s international growth strategy in the water segment’.
The transaction still requires approval from regulatory authorities, among others, with TAQA anticipating that it will be completed in 2026, reports Jornal de Negocios – the same year that the desalination plant (the first for the Portuguese mainland) is ‘scheduled to be completed’.
“The infrastructure will initially offer a capacity to convert 16 million cubic metres of seawater into drinking water, but it is being designed to have the capacity to “treat up to three times more, i.e. up to 24 million cubic metres”, says HN.
Bearing in mind that there are only four months left of 2025, the timeline for construction of the desalination plant (which Aquapor’s CEO has said in the past will take 21 months) may well have to be extended, and costings reviewed. The various legal challenges also may affect plans. But for now, landowners have started receiving notices of expropriations/ compulsory purchase, and none will be celebrating: the largest landowner affected has already described how a plot that it has that would sell of around €15 million on the open market, is due to be compulsorily purchased for around €600,000.
Source material: Jornal de Negocios
