TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said his ministry is going to allocate 26 billion cubic meters of seawater to be used for industrial purposes in the country’s coastal provinces, IRIB reported.

According to Ardakanian, coastal provinces such as Hormozgan, Sistan-Baluchestan, and Bushehr can use seawater in projects that do not require water desalination like aquaculture or for cooling the towers of thermal power plants.

“Up to 26 billion cubic meters of seawater has been allocated for such uses, which can be used in coastal provinces as required,” the official said.

He also noted that for those projects that need the seawater to be desalinated, necessary licenses have been issued in the mentioned provinces.

“In these projects, the ratio of desalinated water to the seawater is one third, which means that we have to take three times as much seawater to get equal to one-third of it sweet water”, the minister said.

Studies have also been carried out for desalinating the seawater and transferring it to non-coastal areas in the south of the country, but the implementation of such a project requires the preparation and approval of a plan for consumption management in the mentioned areas as well, Ardakanian said.

“For example, if in a province on the Central Plateau, we simply invest in water transfer projects without changing the cultivation patterns or reducing the extraction from aquifers, it means that we have postponed the problem to the future,” he explained.

EF/MA