Bahrain’s Public Works Ministry is due to sign the sewage treatment agreement (STA) for the Muharraq wastewater treatment plant by early December, once the final stages of putting a banking group in place for the project have been completed.

The UK’s United Utilities and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering have been selected preferred bidder, and they have appointed Australia’s Macquarie as financial adviser.

The lending group will consist of three banks, including France’s Natixis, which is also acting as documentation bank.

The debt tranche of the financing will be about $300m, with the largest contribution coming from Export-Import Bank of Korea (Kexim).

Financial close for the project is due to occur in February 2011.

The Samsung consortium was named preferred bidder in July, after bids were submitted in February. The project involves the construction of a 100,000 cubic metre a day wastewater treatment plant and a large deep tunnel sewer and wastewater connection network.

In mid-November Bahrain began seeking expressions of interest in its next sewage treatment plant at Tubli (MEED 14:11:10).

The government of Bahrain is being advised on both the Muharraq and Tubli projects by Germany’s Fichtner, UK bank HSBC and UK law firm Norton Rose.