In October 2019, The Guardian reported that officials in Kenya's Turkana region were negotiating with Saudi-owned Almar Water over a desalination plant. According to water services director Tito Ochieng, it would be located in Nanam village, above the Lotikipi aquifer, and cost 5 to 10 billion Kenyan shillings. Found in 2013 and estimated at 200 billion m³, the aquifer had raised high hopes, but a 2015 government report judged its water too saline. Almar Water already had a deal for a 160 million US dollar plant in Mombasa.
The report showed how desalination became an option far from the coast when groundwater proved too saline, and how investors from the Gulf region took an interest in water projects in East Africa.
Source: The Guardian