QATAR is planning to build a QR10-billion ($2.75 billion) reservoir capable of holding fresh water enough for seven days, in case its giant desalination plants that supply 99 per cent of the country’s water fail.

The storage project with a planned capacity of 1.9 billion gallons is still in the design stage, according to Saad Al Mohannadi, the director of technical affairs at Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa).

 It may include a network of reservoirs connected by a 183 km, 2.5-m-wide pipeline linking the Ras Laffan desalination facility in the country’s north and the Ras Abu Fontas plant in the south, he added.

Qatar produces most of its electricity and desalinated water from privately-managed power and seawater desalination projects run under the independent water and power project, or IWPP, model.

Any disruption to these plants could be catastrophic, cutting off Qatar’s only source of freshwater and potentially plunging it into an emergency.

Production of desalinated water, which requires large amounts of power, is expected to increase 24 per cent from current levels to reach 325 million gallons a day by the end of 2012, according to data from Kahramaa.

Kahramaa, the project client, is expected to tender the main construction contract shortly. It has earmarked QR70 billion ($19.22 billion) on investment in the power and water sector over the next decade to meet soaring demand driven by a rising population and booming industries like petrochemicals, steel and agriculture.

France’s Sogreah Consulting has carried out the basic concept report on the water storage facility. The final design was still being completed but one option was for three to five reservoirs, some of which could be underground, Al Mohannadi said.

The project will be implemented in three phases, and work on the first phase would start in 2013. Another option advises five sites at different locations across the country that would each contain several reservoirs.