Al Gurg Fosroc, a company noted for its quality products and service, has supplied large quantities of water bars to the Fujairah Desalination and Power Plant, in addition to waterproofing membranes, grouts, concrete additives and epoxy coating systems.

The project, worth $1.3 billion, is being implemented by the UAE Offsets Group (UOG). Union Water and Electricity Company (UWEC) will build, operate and manage the project.

The complex, when operational around mid 2003, will have a capacity of 620MW and 100 million gallons per day (g/d) of water. The desalination plant will be a hybrid. Some 62.5 million g/d of water will be produced by the multi-stage flash process (evaporators) with the remaining 37.5 million g/d coming from a reverse osmosis unit.

This makes the project the only one in the Middle East and one of the biggest in the world to use a combination of the two water desalination technologies.

Germany's Fichtner is the technical consultant on the project while South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company is the main contractor.

Belgium's Six Construct was awarded the contract for site preparation works, the seawater intake system and civil works for the onshore and offshore elements of the desalination plant. Arabian Construction Company (ACC) was awarded the contract for the civil works related to the power plant.

"The consultant's specifications for the project are strict and refer to many European's standards.

"We therefore placed great emphasis in choosing the best materials as any refusal from the consultant could have delayed the fast start of the project," says a Six Construct representative.

"As Fosroc is a well established name in the region and their water bars have been used on a number of projects for over two decades, there was no difficulty in proposing their product to the client."

"We have established a good relationship with Fosroc and we received efficient technical assistance from them right from the beginning of the project." Around 15 km of Supercast PVC have already been used on this project, according to Six Construct.

Four km of Supercast SW 20 hydrophilic water stop (swellable gasket), a new product was also used, for the first time, in such a large quantity.

Due to the complexity of several structures and construction methods, hydrophilic gaskets were used in areas too small for PVC waterbars (interaction with reinforcement of concrete).

Its newness to the application also meant that Six Construct along with Al Gurg Fosroc had to convince people at the site that the product is as good as PVC.

"Technical service from Fosroc was helpful on this fast track project," says Six Construct's representative.

"We had a large team on site to handle the technical matters."

Due to the size and the very tight schedule of the project, a permanent follow-up of materials delivery in coordination with Fosroc was necessary.