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Kharafi wins Egypt wastewater deal

19 June 2025

 

Kuwaiti contractor Mohamed Abdulmohsin Al-Kharafi & Sons has won a €69m ($79m) contract to design and build a new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Tanta with a capacity of 100,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d). 

Four other international and local contractors bid for the 30-month contract tendered by Gharbia Company for Water & Wastewater.

The aim of the project is to have an installed flow rate of 100,000 cm/d by 2037, expanded under a later phase to 150,000 cm/d by 2057. 

The scheme is a core component of the $730m Kitchener Drain Depollution project funded by the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development.

The programme’s aim is to depollute the Kitchener Drain, also called the Main Gharbia Drain, one of the main agricultural drains in the Nile delta. Some 69 kilometres long, the drain is the main source of irrigation water for about 193,000 hectares of agricultural land. 

However, it is highly polluted due to poorly or untreated domestic wastewater discharge; uncontrolled municipal solid waste disposal into and along the banks of the drain; industrial wastewater discharges; and agricultural runoff.

Other significant projects under the programme include a $28m contract awarded in March 2024 to rehabilitate the Umm Tahoun, Arbaeen and Al-Suyah canals; a separate $40m deal to rehabilitate bridges across the drain and depollute the Beshbish, Sanbara and Shemy canals; and an estimated $70m contract to build new mechanical and biological treatment facilities with total capacity of 1,800 tonnes a day in the city of Defra, for which tender evaluation is under way.

Tanta is one of many WWTP projects tendered or awarded in Egypt over the past five years. Recently, a general procurement notice was issued for the fourth-phase design-build expansion of the giant Abu Rawash WWTP in Giza, while in late May, a grouping of the local Hassan Allam Construction and UAE-headquartered Metito won an estimated $200m contract to upgrade and expand the Alexandria West WWTP.

The world’s largest WWTP, the 7.5 million cm/d New Delta Irrigation plant, was completed in 2023. It was preceded by the 5 million cm/d Bahr El-Baqr facility commissioned two years earlier.  

READ THE JUNE 2025 MEED BUSINESS REVIEW – click here to view PDF

Gulf accelerates AI and data centre strategy; Baghdad keeps up project spending, but fiscal clouds gather; Banking stocks rise despite lower global oil prices

Distributed to senior decision-makers in the region and around the world, the June 2025 edition of MEED Business Review includes:

> GULF PROJECTS INDEX: Gulf projects index leaps 4.3%
To see previous issues of MEED Business Review, please click here
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Edward James

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