Saudi Arabia’s Water & Electricity Company (WEC) has prequalified ten groups to participate in the tender for the planned West Dammam independent sewage treatment plant (ISTP).

According to sources close to the project, the client has prequalified ten of the 15 groups which submitted prequalification documents in January.

The ten groups which have been prequalified to participate in the tender are believed to be:

• Acciona Agua (Spain)
• Cobra (Spain), Saur (France), CWC (local)
• FCC (Spain)/ Aqualia (Spain)/ Nesma (local)
• Marubeni (Japan)
• Mitsui (Japan)/ Miahona (local)
• Mowah (local)/Metito (UAE)/Orascom Construction (Egypt)
• Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Saudi Industrial Services Company (local)/ Amiantit (local)/China Gezhouba Group Corporation/ International Water Distribution Company (local)
• Suez (France)/Al-Khorayef (local)
• Veolia (France)/ Marafiq (Saudi Arabia)

 The planned West Dammam ISTP will have a capacity of 330,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

MEED reported in November that WEC had invited companies to submit expressions of interest for the Dammam scheme, which will be developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model. WEC received 64 expressions of interest for the planned sewage treatment plant.

The project will be developed under a 25-year sewage treatment agreement (STA), under which the sewage capacity will be provided by the National Water Company (NWC). WEC’s obligations under the STA will be guaranteed by a credit support agreement from the Saudi government.

WEC is also planning to develop the planned Jeddah 2 Airport sewage treatment plant (STP) under a PPP model, which will have a total treatment capacity of 500,000 cm/d. The new ITSP will be located adjacent to the existing 350,000 cm/d Jeddah Airport STP.

The advisory team working on the Dammam and Jeddah Airport 2 ISTP projects is being led by Japan’s Mizuho Bank, financial adviser, and will also include UK-based Atkins, owned by Canada’s SNC Lavalin, technical adviser, and US-based law firm White & Case as legal adviser. MEED reported in September last year that the advisory team had been selected for a handful of planned PPP sewage treatment plants and related projects.