EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia postpones bid opening for desalination project

17 October 2018
Client received proposals from six bidders in September

Saudi Arabia’s Water & Electricity Company (WEC) has postponed the public bid opening for the planned Shuqaiq 3 independent water project (IWP).

MEED recently reported that the client had set a date of 18 October to publicly read out the received bids for the project, and had invited the six bidders to send representatives for the public announcement of received tariffs.

However, the client has now notified bidders that bid opening has been postponed due to the high volume of transactions the kingdom is dealing with. Bidders will be notified in due course about the new tariff opening date.

MEED reported in September that WEC had received proposals from six international consortiums for the planned Shuqaiq 3 scheme.

The groups that submitted proposals are:

  • Veolia (France) / Marafiq (local) / Alamwal al-Khaleejiah al-Thaniya (local)
  • FCC Aqualia (Spain) / Nesma (local) / Haaco (local)
  • Marubeni Corporation (Japan) / Acciona Agua (Spain) / Abdul Latif Jameel (local) / Bahr Rawafid (local)
  • Engie (France) / Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan) / SSEM (local) / Metito (local)
  • Acwa Power (local) / Al-Babtain Contracting (local)
  • Cobra (Spain) / Orascom (Egypt) / Al-Blagha Investment (local)

The IWP will have a capacity of 450,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

The plant will use membrane reverse osmosis (RO) technology, and will be developed in the town of Shuqaiq, located on the Red Sea coast about 137 kilometres north of Jizan.

The Shuqaiq project will be developed under a build, own and operate model (BOO), with a project company to be formed and 100 per cent owned by the successful bidder. The selected bidder will sign a 25-year water purchase agreement (WPA) with WEC, which will be the offtaker for the produced water.

The client is aiming to select the preferred bidder in November, and hopes to sign the WPA with the successful bidder on 13 December.

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