Saudi Arabia’s Water & Electricity Company (WEC) has invited firms to express interest by 27 January in the development of an independent sewage treatment plant near the city of Taif.

The proposed plant will have a total ultimate treatment capacity of up to 270,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) and will be operated under a 25-year sewage treatment agreement (STA).

WEC says it will conduct a competitive process to select a developer or developer consortium for the development, financing, engineering, procurement, construction, implementation, ownership, operation, maintenance and transfer of the project, together with associated infrastructure and facilities.

Mizuho Bank is the lead and financial adviser; White & Case is the legal adviser; and Atkins (part of Canada’s SNC Lavalin) is the technical adviser.

In September last year, WEC has received proposals from six bidders for its planned Jeddah Airport 2 independent sewage treatment project (ISTP).

The Jeddah Airport 2 plant will be built with a capacity of 300,000 cm/d, and designed and developed so it could be expanded to 500,000 cm/d.

By adopting the PPP model for developing ISTPs, the kingdom is attempting to attract more private financing for all future major utility schemes. This comes in light of the severe impact the drop in oil prices is having on the government’s revenues. Privatising utilities is a key part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic reform programme.