Friday 22 Nov
On Monday, informed sources revealed that 17 joint ventures of Egyptian, Gulf, Chinese, and European companies are preparing to bid on a tender in July to establish four seawater desalination plants on the North Coast. The sources stated that Egypt plans to locate the plants near Ras Al Hekma in Matrouh Governorate, with a total project cost of $350 million.
The targeted production capacity
of the four plants ranges between 300 and 400 thousand cubic meters per day of
potable and usable water, adding that they will serve areas including Dabaa and
others near Ras Al Hekma.
The sources clarified that the
project would follow a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, where the investor finances
construction, sells the produced water to the state, and then the project
ownership is transferred to the state after set period.
One or more of these plants are
likely intended to support the development of the global city planned for the
Ras Al Hekma area, which was signed in February of last year between the New
Urban Communities Authority and Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ) at
a value of 35 billion dollars. It is
expected that the value of investments that will be pumped into the project
throughout its implementation years will reach 150 billion dollars. The project
is expected to attract up to $150 billion in investments over its development
phases.
The sources revealed that
qualified consortiums were notified about a year ago to prepare bid documents
for this tender.
The sources identified some of
the qualified companies such as: Orascom Construction, Hassan Allam, Samcrete,
Ahmed Abdel Wareth for Engineering Consulting and Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power
Company.
