Egypt’s Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development Ministry has adjusted the scope of its planned wastewater treatment facility at Abu Rawash and intends to relaunch the prequalification process once more.

This will be the third time that the request for qualification (RFQ) is issued. The latest adjustment revises down the planned capacity of the sludge management and cogeneration capacities of the project.

In October, the ministry decided to add sludge management and cogeneration capabilities to the project and reopened prequalification as a result. The facility was to have a secondary treatment capacity of 800,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) and a power generation capacity of 9MW. However, prospective bidders have been informed that this will be reduced.

The winning bidder will sign a 20-year public-private partnership (PPP) agreement for the design, financing and construction of a secondary treatment stage, sludge management facilities and cogeneration unit.

Power from the cogeneration unit will feed into the wastewater treatment project. The higher costs associated with adding power generation to the project is to be absorbed by the bidders in higher bid prices.

The original contract was to include the operation and maintenance of a 1.2 million cm/d primary treatment facility with no sludge treatment or cogeneration units.

Five consortiums were prequalified to bid for the project in April (MEED 15:4:10). The groups were:

• Orascom (local), Veolia (France), Aqualia Gestion (Spain) and Aqualia Infrastructure (Spain)
• Mohamed Abdulmohsin al-Kharafi & Sons Company (Kuwait) and Cadagua (Spain)
• AAW (local), Degremont (France) and Hassan Allam Sons (local)
• Acciona Agua (Spain), Icat (local) and Samcrete (local)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea), Macquarie (Australia), Donga (South Korea) and KB Entec (South Korea)

The tender is being run by Egypt’s Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development Ministry represented by the Construction Authority for Potable Water and Wastewater with technical assistance from the PPP Central Unit of the Finance Ministry.

The UK’s Trowers & Hamlins and KPMG are the government’s legal and financial advisers respectively.