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Meridiam eyes 2025 close for $2bn Jordan water project

7 November 2024

 

A team led by Paris-based investment firm Meridiam aims to reach financial close for Jordan’s Aqaba-Amman water desalination and conveyance project sometime in 2025.

According to an industry source, the project is progressing well. The developer team is currently working with Jordan’s public authorities and discussing financing with partners.

“There is no definite target for financial close, but it should be reached in 2025,” the source told MEED.

The project is crucial to addressing Jordan’s severe water scarcity issue. The kingdom is one of the world’s most water-stressed countries, consuming nearly 1 billion cubic metres of water a year.

The domestic sector consumes approximately 50% of this, with only 61 cubic metres of water available per person a year, far below the global absolute water scarcity level of 500 cubic metres of water per capita.

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh announced in August this year that a team comprising French companies Meridiam and Suez and their partners had been chosen to implement the project.

Estimated to cost $2bn-$3bn, the Aqaba-Amman water desalination and conveyance build, operate and transfer project is Jordan’s single largest planned infrastructure scheme to date. 

The desalination component of the project will have the capacity to treat 835,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of water, although the scope of the contract that has been awarded to the developer consortium has a capacity of 300,000 cm/d.

It also includes 445 kilometres of pipelines that will transport desalinated water from the southern Red Sea coast to the country’s northern regions.

In addition to Meridiam and Suez, the developer consortium includes Egypt’s Orascom Construction and France’s Vinci Construction Grands Projets.

According to Meridiam, the project is supported by the US International Development Finance Corporation and the US Agency for International Development (Usaid) in Amman, which has also been advising the Jordanian government on the project.

Founded in 2005, Meridiam manages over $22bn of assets and more than 125 projects to date.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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