Egypt has selected the UK’s Ernst & Young as consultant on a project to expand and upgrade the existing wastewater treatment plant in Alexandria.

The Housing Utilities and Urban Development Ministry is running the project with the assistance of the Finance Ministry’s PPP Central Unit.

The plant is located in the west of the Alexandria governorate. The current capacity of the facility is 460,000 cubic metres per day (m3/day) and the plant treats about 365,000m3 at present.

The scheme will upgrade the plant to secondary treatment and expand the capacity to 680,000m3/day. This upgrade is expected to take about 42 months to complete.

The government is expected to approach developers soon to design, construct, finance, operate and maintain the plant.

The facility will take wastewater from the west of Alexandria, which is home to 1.3 million people. The population is expected to rise to 1.8 million by 2037.

Sludge is pumped to the plant from the Alexandria East treatment plant. The treatment plant discharges the primary treated wastewater effluent into Lake Mariout.