An FCC Aqualia-led consortium has been awarded a contract worth $2.7 billion for the development and operation of a water treatment plant in Egypt. The Spanish company and its partners Orascom Construction (OC), Veolia and the local business ICAT will design, construct and operation the 1.6 million cubic metres of water daily (m3/d) Abu Rawash water treatment plant in Cairo. Once fully operational the plant will provide service to 5.5 million people, making it one of the largest treatment plants worldwide. It is the largest contract awarded in the history of the water management subsidiary of FCC, considering that it will involve a business portfolio for the consortium worth EUR 2.4 billion ($2.7 billion). The Egyptian Ministry of Urban Planning made an official announcement of the awarding of the contract to the FCC Aqualia-led consortium via its subsidiary Aqualia New Europe, a company which is partially owned by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It is a build-operate-transfer contract with an investment of more than EUR 500mn and expected total revenue throughout the concession reaching EUR 2.4bn. The project has solid financial backing from the EBRD, the World Bank and the Egyptian Bank. The scope of the investment works includes the expansion of the biological treatment facilities in the current primary treatment plant with a capacity for 1.2 million m3 and the scaling-up to 1.6 million m3 of water treated daily. This is the second large-scale project that FCC Aqualia has carried out in Egypt, after having been awarded in 2010 the design, construction and operation of the wastewater treatment plant in New Cairo for a period of 20 years. Located in the capital of Egypt, it was the first contract that was awarded in the country for a collaborative public-private partnership (PPP). Source:Arab Finance
