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Inside Saudi Arabia’s water PPP ecosystem

Saudi Arabia’s water PPP market has grown into one of the most structured and well-governed sectors for global developers, underpinned by institutional reforms, legal frameworks and digital tools that have systematically reduced the barriers to market entry.

By SHARAKAT

Despite a significant increase in investment in Qatar’s water sector in recent years, storage capacity remains low, providing just over two days of reserves. As a result, Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) is undertaking a major scheme to build up storage reserves through the construction of 15 million cubic metres of new capacity under the Water Security Mega Reservoirs programme.

The scheme has been designed to provide seven days of strategic water storage, which will shore up the country’s reserve water supplies to protect against any future disruptions in supply.

The water storage programme will cost an estimated $3.2bn. The concept design was completed in early 2011 by French project manager Sogreah, now part of the Artelia group. In August 2011, Kahramaa received consultancy bids for the detailed design and construction supervision contract, which was awarded in February 2012 to the UK’s Hyder.

Each reservoir site will contain up to 10 reservoir modules, which could be the largest of their type in the world. The reservoirs and pipeline network, with associated pumping stations, are planned to store up to 15 million cubic metres of potable water. The scheme is set for completion in 2019.

The project will connect the desalination plants at Ras Laffan and Ras Abu Fontas, which will skirt the west side of Doha. The pipeline will also connect to five reservoirs on the outskirts of the capital, which will be linked by about 200 kilometres of large-diameter pipeline.

The first construction contracts on the programme, for transmission pipelines, were tendered in the fourth quarter of 2013, and the main construction packages to build the five reservoirs were tendered in 2014.

Contractors were invited to submit bids for five separate packages – A,B,C,D and E – to build the reservoirs and associated infrastructure at the five locations planned for the projects. The sites where the reservoirs will be located are: Umm Birka, Umm Slal, Al-Thumama, Rawdhat, Rashid and Abu Nakhla.

In March 2015, Kahramaa selected four firms for the five main construction packages on the reservoirs project.

The selected contractors and packages are:

• Consolidated Contractors Company / Teyseer (local) – packages A and C
• Habtoor Leighton Group (UAE / Australia) – package D
• HBK Contracting (local) – package B
• China Gezhouba / Burhan International Contracting (Kuwait) – package E

In September 2015, Kahramaa received bids for the contract to provide and install a major transmission pipeline to link a desalination plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City to reservoirs in the mega reservoirs scheme.

The work will involve designing and installing the complete piping system from the Facility E desalination plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City and the primary reservoir and pumping station (PRPS) 1, near Umm Birka, and the PRPS 2 at Umm Slal.