Delays in securing building permits has meant that ground-breaking for a new multi-million dollar desalination water plant at Tynes Bay has only just begun.

But an overall target completion and commissioning date for February next year remains on schedule for Consolidated Water (Bermuda), which will generate $10.5 million revenue through its contract with Government to build and operate the facility for its first year.

Despite being held up by permit delays the Tynes Bay facility is underway for the water plant, which will have a capacity to create 600,000 US gallons of drinking water per day.

The new plant, which will turn seawater into drinkable water, has been designed to allow a doubling of its production capacity in the future.

Consolidated Water (Bermuda) is an affiliate of Cayman Islands-based Consolidated Water, which has just released its second quarter results showing a $100,000 rise in its profits to $2,621,537.

"We are making good progress on the Bermuda project although we only recently broke ground on the site because of building permit delays. The overall schedule for the project remains on target. Much of the equipment is on order and we still expect to complete the plant in early 2008," said Consolidated Water president and CEO Frederick McTaggart.

The building of the Tynes Bay plant, together with another project in Cayman, added a combined $626,131 of profit to Consolidated's balance sheet for the first six months of the year. Six month revenue of $3.7m was again mostly down to the Bermuda and Cayman plant projects adding $3.2m of revenue.

Under a contract with the Bermuda Government, Consolidated Water (Bermuda) will receive approximately $10.5m under its contract to construct and operate for the first year the Tynes Bay desalination plant, the company has an agreement to recieve up to $7.5m in loans from the Cayman's Consolidated Water to complete the project.

Construction of the Tynes Bay plant has brought in six-month revenue of $1.5m for Consolidated Water (Bermuda), of which $739,539 came in the past three months.

The Tynes Bay project includes providing a standby electrical power plant and 1.27 miles of pipelines for water delivery.

Cayman Islands' Consolidated Water reported $12m in second quarter revenues, up 24 percent year-on-year.