In May 2018, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Israel had opened prequalification for a new large desalination plant at Sorek. It was reportedly sized at 150 million m³ a year, lifting national desalination output by 25 per cent. Qualification statements were due on 3 September 2018. A further plant of 274,000 m³/day in Western Galilee was expected to start in 2019. Both stemmed from a drought strategy by infrastructure minister Yuval Steinitz targeting 1 billion m³ of desalinated water a year by 2030.
The report showed that Israel, after years of drought, kept expanding desalination as the backbone of its drinking water supply and awarded new large plants through multi-stage tenders.