France’s Degremont, a subsidiary of Suez Environment, has been awarded major desalination and wastewater contracts worth a total of $215.4m in Abu Dhabi and Oman.

For the Abu Dhabi contract, Degremont has been awarded contracts worth AED677m ($184m) to build and operate the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination component of the Mirfa independent water and power project (IWPP) in Abu Dhabi.

The company was awarded a contract worth AED544m by South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction (E&C) to build the RO plant, and was awarded a AED133m contract by Mirfa International Power & Water Company, the project company for the IWPP, to operate and maintain the plant for seven years.

The Mirfa desalination component will have a capacity of 240,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

Hyundai E&C is part of the UK/French GDF Suez consortium selected to develop the IWPP. The consortium signed the power and water purchase agreement (PWPA) with the Abu Dhabi Electricity & Water Authority (Adwea) in July this year.

MEED recently reported that the Mirfa scheme had reached financial close, with Adwea and the GDF Suez Energy International consortium having signed a $1.8bn project financing deal in support of the IWPP. The 25-year agreement gave GDF Suez a 20 per cent equity stake in the project, with the remaining 80 per cent held by Adwea, the single buyer and seller of water and electricity in Abu Dhabi.

For the Oman contract, Degremont, in partnership with the local Al-Ansari Trading Enterprise, has been awarded a RO12m ($31m) contract to design and operate a 18,000-cm/d wastewater treatment plant at Al-Amerat. Degremont will also provide operation and maintenance (O&M) services for a period of two years.

The Al-Amerat sewage treatment plant will use membrane biological reactor technology. The treated effluent storage reservoir will have a capacity of 16,000 cubic metres, which equates to about a day’s capacity at the design flow rate. A pumping station and pipelines for transmitting treated effluent to distribution networks will also be constructed by the contractor.