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Project Wave first phase reaches financial close

25 September 2023

The $2.2bn first phase of the project to supply treated seawater to onshore oil fields in Abu Dhabi, dubbed as Project Wave, has reached financial close.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) awarded the 30-year build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) contract to a team of Egypt's Orascom Construction and Metito in May this year.

The following banks will provide a combination of commercial and Islamic finance facilities for the project:

  •  First Abu Dhabi Bank (local)
  • Gulf International Bank (Bahrain)
  • Natixis (France)
  • Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (local),
  • Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (local),
  • Commercial Bank of Dubai (local)
  • Emirates NBD (local)
  • Emirates Development Bank (local)
  • Warba Bank (Kuwait)

The balance of the project cost will be provided by the project sponsors in accordance with their equity shares.

Adnoc and Taqa will hold a joint majority stake of 51 per cent in the project company, while the developer consortium will hold the remaining 49 per cent.

The Orascom-Metito team will develop and operate the facilities to sustainably treat and supply seawater for Adnoc's operations at the Bab and Bu Hasa fields in Abu Dhabi, furthering Adnoc's efforts to decarbonise, transform and future-proof its business.

Adnoc received three bids for the contract to develop the project in September 2022. 

A team comprising France's Veolia and Saudi Arabia's Vision Invest was the second bidder. The third bidder was Japan's Marubeni Corporation.

Spain's Cobra Instalaciones dropped out of the winning team shortly after the contract was awarded.

Nanofiltration scope

The package involves the development of a nanofiltration plant with a capacity of 115 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) in Mirfa.

The scheme includes the plant's seawater intake and outfall facilities, two pumping stations, a 75-kilometre water transmission pipeline and 230 kilometres of distribution pipelines to the Bab and Bu Hasa oil fields.

The project is expected to reduce the water injection-related energy consumption of the oil fields by up to 30 per cent.

The clients issued the requests for qualifications for the contract to develop two seawater treatment plants and associated facilities in March 2021.

Aquifer injection system

Project Wave will replace the current aquifer water injection systems used to maintain reservoir pressure in all onshore oil fields in Abu Dhabi. It aims to utilise seawater as an additional source for enhanced oil recovery-based injection into Abu Dhabi's onshore fields.

It is understood that Project Wave's second package, in Al-Nouf, will be tendered separately. 

The two planned standalone greenfield seawater nanofiltration plants were to have a combined treatment capacity of about 210MIGD. This is understood to have been expanded.

Adnoc will be the sole offtaker of the treated seawater at the battery limit of the Adnoc Onshore fields.

A team of UK-based Alderbrook Finance and Saudi Arabia-based SMBC are the financial advisers to the client for the BOOT projects. Austria-headquartered ILF Consulting Engineers is the technical adviser.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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