Meed | Finance in place for Saudi wastewater package

Finance in place for Saudi wastewater package

13 March 2023

Saudi Arabia’s main potable water and wastewater collection and treatment company, National Water Company (NWC), and a team of local companies, Miahona and Thabat Construction Company, have reached financial close on a long-term operation and maintenance (LTOM) contract.

The Mecca City LTOM project scope includes rehabilitation works and operation and maintenance services for two sewage treatment plants, Hadda and Arana, with a total wastewater treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic metres a day.

The LTOM contract is worth SR392m ($104m). The Miahona and Thabat team offered a levelised tariff of SR0.21 a cubic metre (roughly $0.057/cm) for the contract.

The brownfield concession uses a rehabilitate-operate-transfer (ROT) model covering a 10-year period.

NWC’s LTOM programme aims to “extend the remaining useful lives of the assets, ensure high-quality sewage treatment and minimise the impact on the local communities and the environment”.

A team comprising US/India’s Synergy Consulting, Germany-headquartered Fichtner and the UK’s Clifford Chance is advising NWC on the project.

The entire LTOM programme comprises nine packages, covering different areas across the kingdom, which will be tendered separately.

In August last year, NWC unveiled a five-year, SR108bn investment plan for the kingdom’s water infrastructure.

The projects are distributed across 13 administrative regions in the kingdom. They aim to expand the coverage of water and wastewater networks and increase the capacity of sewage treatment plants across the country.

The latest five-year plan allocates an estimated SR39bn to Mecca, SR16bn to the Eastern Province and SR14.2bn to Riyadh.

In 2020, NWC announced a project spending plan of SR145bn between 2020-25.

These programmes aim to boost water security and supply in the kingdom in response to increasing demand driven by population growth and expanding economic activities.