The third water desalination station in Sho'aiba is expected to start operation in Makkah at the beginning of 2009, Fhaid Al-Sahreef, head of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) said on Monday. Sahreef added that the new station will boost capacity to 880,000 cubic meters a day. He added that Custodian of the Two holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz had ordered tackling Jeddah's water crisis immediately. Part of the solution was a mobile desalination station with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters a day, which is expected to start providing Jeddah with fresh water before Ramadan. Shareef said that the King had ordered building another water desalination station in Jeddah. Set to start production in 2011, the enw station is expected to produce 240,000 cubic meters a day. He said that these projects, with a combined capacity of 1,280,000 cubic meters, in addition to old stations, will cover the Red Sea city's fresh water needs for years to come. Regarding privatization of the SWCC, Al-Shareef said it will begin with Yanbu's station, as it has been approved to privatize 400,000 cubic meters that will be put for private investment over the next few months. __
