My Journey with Intakes & Outfalls in Desalination

Yesterday, February 25, 2025, marked a major milestone at The Water MBA. We uploaded Part I of our course, designed to provide in-depth knowledge on this critical system—not only for desalination plants but also for wastewater treatment plant outfalls.

In this post, I’ll share how my journey in this field began, how it evolved, and what this course brings to the market.

Why This Course?

Let’s keep it simple—desalination capacity is set to multiply in the coming years. Just look at the forecasts for countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and many others.

Despite their differences, they all share one crucial component in desalination projects: Intake & Outfall Systems.

Whether you’re an offtaker, developer, EPC contractor, subcontractor, or supplier, investing a little time in gaining the right insights now can save you a lot of headaches in the future.

How It All Began

Back in 2013, I had the opportunity to support my colleague Alejandra Herrero Yaque in bidding for my first desalination plant project. It was in Namibia, where the Atlantic Ocean’s rough waves made it incredibly challenging to figure out how to place a pipe along the shoreline.

Then came Takoradi Desalination Plant (Ghana)—where dealing with rocky seabeds and powerful winter waves was a whole new challenge. Later, I worked on Radomiro Tomic (Chile), this time battling the Pacific Ocean to execute offshore installations, with a jetty approach. And there were many more...

Key Learning Moments

One project that truly shaped my understanding was Al Khafji Desalination Plant in the Persian Gulf. Up until then, I was used to working with HDPE pipes, but this time, the client specified GRP pipes. I couldn’t understand why—why install more than 16 km of GRP pipes instead of HDPE?

This was when I had the privilege of learning from Jose Maria De Colubi Casanova , one of the world’s top experts in this field. He helped me understand the complexities of GRP pipe joining, installation, and backfilling over long distances.

Then came Shuaibah II RO Expansion—I had to estimate costs through tough negotiations with subcontractors in Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, once the project moved forward, everything aligned as expected.

Through these experiences, I also realized that some large-scale desalination plants don’t use pipes at all—instead, they rely on open intake channels to handle massive flow rates more efficiently.

More recently, I had the chance to collaborate on the design and procurement of desalination plants in Algeria. It was an incredible feeling to see the pictures of long-length pipes floating off the coast, ready to be sunk and installed—a perfect example of theory turning into reality.

Multiplied Effect

But this is not about me, because knowledge has a multiplied effect when discussing and debating with others.

So our course will also include the presence of amazing professionals in this field, such as:

• Markus Ebster from AGRU Kunststofftechnik GmbH
• Rodrigo Moldes from EUROHINCA , to talk about Microtunneling.
• Mateus Nobeschi from 4Pipe-Hidropig , to talk about Pigging System.
• Antonio Cantalejo Moreno from PPA and how their structural pipes have been used
• Pedro Estévez Martínez from Pipelife International .
• Félix P. M. sharing insights from an EPC perspective.
• MANUEL VICTOR ALONSO SAN MARTIN , who will join us as one of the best technical advisors you may find in the market.

Other invitations have been sent, and we hope some of them can come to fruition to bring the best of the best in this field.

Conclusion

Every project is a unique story, full of challenges and lessons learned.

The value of years of experience grows when shared with others—that’s exactly what this course is about.

We’re kicking off with an amazing group of 10 professionals from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Spain, Austria, Turkey, Egypt, and Algeria—and I’m sure many more will join. The course is available on-demand, so you can learn at your own pace.

I hope you find value in it and become part of our Intake & Outfall community, so we can navigate this ever-evolving field together in the years to come!

Join Intake & Outfall MBA