Related Articles

• 
  Acwa Power applies for $1.9bn capital increase

  20 December 2024

  Saudi utility developer and investor Acwa Power has submitted its application to raise additional capital to the kingdom’s Capital Market Authority (CMA).

  The move aligns with the Acwa Power board’s previous recommendation to increase its capital through offering rights issue shares for a total offering value of SR7.125m ($1.9bn), the company said in a regulatory filing on 19 December.

  The capital injection is expected to support Acwa Power’s ongoing investments in renewable energy infrastructure and help the company scale its operations in line with its financial goals.

  The company previously stated that it expects a substantial increase in its average annual investment commitments between 2024 and 2030.

  The firm anticipates investing between $2bn and $2.5bn a year over the next six years, twice the scale of its previous commitment to invest between $1bn and $1.3bn annually.

  Last week, it was reported that the utility developer lost over $25bn in market value, highlighting global and regional market volatility. 

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Saudi Arabia retenders Shoaiba 6 water contract

  20 December 2024

  Saudi Water Authority (SWA), the kingdom’s main producer of desalinated water, has retendered a contract to build a new water desalination plant on Saudi Arabia’s western coast, using reverse osmosis technology.

  When the Shoaiba 6 seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant was previously tendered, Jeddah-based Alfatah Water & Power offered the lowest bid for the contract.

  The retendered contract indicates a capacity of between 500,000 cm/d and 545,000 cm/d.

  SWA expects to receive bids for the retendered contract by 10 January 2025.

  Shoaiba 6 is one of four contracts that SWA has tendered this year using an engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contracting model.

  The other three SWRO projects are Yanbu 5, Ras Al-Khair and Jubail.

  VA Tech Wabag submitted the lowest bid for Yanbu 5 and won the $317m contract to build the plant in September. The plant will have the capacity to treat 300,000 cm/d of seawater.

  However, on 16 December, SWA cancelled the contract and informed the bidders that it intended to recalibrate the plant’s capacity and issue a new tender over the coming weeks.

  The Jubail and Ras Al-Khair SWRO projects will each have the capacity to treat 600,000 cm/d of seawater.

  MEED recently reported that Najran-based Emar Al-Janoub for Contracting (EJC) had won the contract to build the Ras Al-Khair SWRO plant.

  EJC offered SR2.346bn ($625.6m) to win the contract, seeing off competition from other bidders including the local Civil Works Company and Saudi Services for Electro Mechanic Works, and the Saudi branch of India’s VA Tech Wabag. 

  SWA is the world’s largest producer of desalinated water, with a capacity of at least 6.6 million cm/d. Plants using older and more energy-intensive techniques, such as multi-stage flash technology, account for the majority of the current capacity.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Saudi water capacity procurement takes new turn

  20 December 2024

  Commentary
  Jennifer Aguinaldo
  Energy & technology editor

  The better part of 2024 saw Saudi Water Authority (SWA), formerly Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), the world’s largest water desalinator, tender and award several contracts to build new seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants in Saudi Arabia.

  The four projects have a total combined capacity of over 2 million cubic metres a day (cm/d) and cost about $2bn.

  Unlike the independent water projects (IWPs) being procured by Saudi Water Partnership Company (SWPC), SWA’s projects were being procured using an engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) model.

  The urgency of additional water desalination capacity, and the need to lower the carbon intensity of the kingdom’s existing water desalination fleet, underpinned SWA’s decision to take the EPCC route, which typically takes less time compared with the build, own and operate (BOO) model, the preferred model for SWPC’s projects.

  SWA, however, cancelled two of the four SWRO contract awards towards the end of 2024 while reassuring the bidders that the contracts would be rendered “over the coming weeks”, most likely with recalibrated or lower capacity than the initial plans.

  The cancellation has put the bidders in an awkward situation. For example, the value of shares of India’s VA Tech Wabag – the winning bidder for the Yanbu SWRO contract – plunged by 16% following the cancellation announcement.

  Notably, SWPC did not officially sign new water-purchase agreements in the first 11 months of 2024 despite naming the preferred bidders for the Ras Mohaisen IWP, which has a capacity of 300,000 cm/d, and the Jubail 4 and 6 IWP, which together have a capacity of 600,000 cm/d.

  These contracts are expected to be awarded in early 2025, coinciding with the release of new tenders for future IWP and independent sewage treatment plant projects.

  SWPC is also expected to finalise the award of the contract to develop the kingdom’s second independent water transmission pipeline that links Jubail and Buraydah shortly, after naming a team comprising Aljomaih Energy & Water, Nesma Company and Buhur for Investment Company as the preferred bidder.

  A third entity, Water Transmission Company (WTCO), has motored ahead by tendering water transmission pipeline projects using a hybrid approach comprising engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and public-private partnership (PPP) models for different projects.

  Despite the SWA contract cancellations, Saudi Arabia’s water sector has performed relatively well. The value of awarded contracts over the past 11 months reached roughly $14bn, closely matching the previous year’s record-high figure.

  The $4.7bn contract to construct dams at Trojena, which Neom awarded to the Italian contractor Webuild in January, helped the kingdom’s water sector avoid a downturn this year.

  The kingdom’s various water stakeholders are expected to foster closer coordination of their procurement programmes in the future to enable more streamlined tendering procedures.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Saudi Arabia receives Medina bus rapid transit bids

  19 December 2024

  

   

  Saudi Arabia’s Al-Madinah Region Development Authority (MDA), through the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP, has received bids for a contract to develop and operate a bus rapid transit (BRT) network in Medina.

  MEED understands that all international bus network operators prequalified to bid for the contract, among others, submitted proposals on 24 November. 

  The project scope involves financing, procuring and delivering depots, rolling stock and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). It also covers the bus fleet’s operation and maintenance and fare collection.

  MEED reported in February this year that NCP had issued the tender for the Medina BRT project, which will be implemented using a public-private partnership (PPP) framework.

  MDA qualified three consortiums and seven individual companies to bid for the project. The qualified bidders include:

  • Transdev (France) / Nesma (local)
  • Arail (local) / ATM (Italy)
  • Alsa (Spain) / National Express (UK)
  • Moventia (Spain)
  • Saptco (local)
  • ST Engineering 
  • Hafil (local)
  • Al-Bawani (local)
  • Keolis (France)
  • Petromin (local)

  Forty-three companies expressed interest in the contract to develop the BRT project in July 2023.

  The planned Medina BRT comprises three corridors with a total length of 64.6 kilometres (km), as well as a feeder bus network.

  The project has an estimated capacity of 1,800 passengers an hour.

  The first route, which will stretch 16.2km from Ohud to Quba Mosque, will have 12 stops and two park-and-ride facilities.

  The second and main route will be 38km long. It will start from Medina’s Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz International airport, pass the Prophet’s Mosque and terminate at Miqat Mosque. The route will have 24 stations and three park-and-ride bus stops.

  The third corridor starts from the eastern terminus on Al-Qassim Road and runs to Prince Abdul Majeed Mosque. It is 10.4km long, with 10 stations and a park-and-ride facility.

  The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate and maintain basis.

  A consortium of French engineering firms Egis and Systra will provide project consultancy services for the Medina BRT project. 

  Pioneering transport PPP

  Based on the plan, the private sector will be responsible for financing, designing and building the depots; financing and procuring the rolling stock or bus fleet and the ITS; and delivering the operations and maintenance for the BRT lines.

  Representing the public sector, MDA will execute and deliver the civil works on the project, including the bus lanes, tunnels, bridges and viaducts.

  MDA appointed a team of UK-based Deloitte, the US/Saudi HDR Middle East and the local Abdul Rahman Fahad Al-Khaili as transaction advisers for the project in 2021.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Sepco wins Rabigh 2 solar EPC contract

  19 December 2024

  China's Shandong Electric Power Construction Company (Sepco) has won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the 300MW Rabigh 2 solar independent power project (IPP) in Saudi Arabia.

  A team comprising the local AlJomaih Energy & Water and France’s TotalEnergies Renewables won the contract to develop and operate the project.

  The team signed the power-purchase agreement (PPA) with Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) for the 300MW Rabigh 2 solar IPP project earlier this month.

  The Rabigh 2 IPP is one of four solar IPPs procured under round five of the kingdom’s National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP). 

  The local/French team proposed developing the project at a levelised electricity cost of  $c1.78 a kilowatt-hour (kWh).

  It saw off competition from the second-lowest bidder, a team of the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) and the local Nesma Renewables, which offered $c1.89/kWh.

  Other schemes under the NREP round five are the 2,000MW Al-Sadawi solar IPP, the 1,000MW Al-Masaa solar IPP and the 400MW Hinakiyah 2 solar IPP.

  US/India-based Synergy Consulting is providing financial advisory services to SPPC for the NREP fifth-round tender. Germany’s Fichtner Consulting is providing technical consultancy services.

  The round five solar PV IPPs take the total capacity of publicly tendered renewable energy projects in Saudi Arabia to over 10,300MW. Solar PV IPPs account for 79%, or about 8,100MW, of the total capacity.

  Four wind IPPs, one of which has yet to be awarded, account for the remaining capacity.

  SPPC recently prequalified companies that can bid for the contracts to develop wind and solar schemes under the sixth round of the NREP.

  SPPC is procuring 30% of the kingdom’s target renewable energy by 2030. Saudi sovereign wealth vehicle the Public Investment Fund (PIF) is procuring the rest through the Price Discovery Scheme. The PIF has appointed Acwa Power, which it partly owns, as principal partner for these projects.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo