Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company (NWC) has invited consultants to submit bids for the contract to provide transaction advisory services for its planned public-private partnership (PPP) programme.

The role is part of NWC’s plans to appoint a group of consultants to undertake several services for the water, wastewater and treated sewage effluent (TSE) sectors in the kingdom. In addition to the transaction advisory services role, NWC is appointing consultants to provide technical consultancy services and lead and transaction advisers for Riyadh, Jeddah and other major cities.

In January, NWC invited consultants to submit bids for the deal to provide consultancy services for water projects within Medina. The contract will involve site supervision of all of the firm’s schemes in the city.

NWC is planning capital expenditure of SR50bn ($13.3bn) on new projects from 2013 to 2017 to improve and expand the kingdom’s water and wastewater infrastructure.

The utility provider is planning to spend the money to expand its coverage of water services throughout the kingdom’s major cities. The majority, SR18bn, will be spent in Riyadh, SR15.7bn will be spent on water schemes in Jeddah and SR10.7bn will be invested in Mecca and Taif. About SR2.8bn has been allocated for Medina and SR2.8bn will be spent in the cities of Dammam and Al-Khobar in the Eastern Province.

NWC currently manages water services in Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca and Taif, which have a combined population of 10.6 million people and a potable water supply of 2.7 million cubic metres a day (cm/d).

By the end of 2014, NWC is aiming to provide water and wastewater services for Medina, Dammam and Al-Khobar, which will involve servicing a total population of 2.2 million and a providing potable water supply of 809,000 cm/d.