Jordan’s Water & Irrigation Ministry (MWI) is understood to have received a single bid for the contract to develop and operate the planned Aqaba-Amman water desalination and conveyance (AAWDC) project.

According to a source close to the project, a team comprising France’s Meridiam and Vinci and Egypt’s Orascom submitted a bid for the contract in December.

MWI prequalified five firms or teams to bid for the estimated $2bn contract. The other four prequalified bidders are:

• Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)
• Huta Marine Works (Saudi Arabia) / Ajlan & Brothers (Saudi Arabia) / Almar Water Solutions (Spain)
• Marubeni Corporation (Japan)
• Naqel Water Solutions (Suez / CCC)

In November, the EU signed a €50m ($53m) grant contribution to the project with the European Investment Bank (EIB), in addition to adopting an additional €47m EU contribution.

That grant complements a new concessional loan of €100m from the EIB. All funding falls under the EU’s Economic and Investment Plan for the Southern Neighbourhood.

The latest contributions follow a €200m financing for the project signed by the EIB in December 2022, representing the first formal commitment of international support.

MWI issued the request for proposals for the contract in March 2022 and initially gave qualified bidders until 6 September that year to submit proposals.

The bid submission date was revised multiple times until a final bid deadline of 5 December last year was set.

“The project could face some financing challenges,” said one source close to the project, citing its scale.

Estimated to cost between $2bn and $3bn, the build-operate-transfer project is Jordan’s single largest planned infrastructure scheme to date. It will pipe water from the southern coast to the country’s northern regions.

The desalination component of the project will have the capacity to treat 835,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of water, unlike the previously reported two-phased approach with a smaller capacity for the initial phase.

The conveyance segment of the project includes the construction of a seawater intake pump station, reservoir, pipeline, booster pump stations and freshwater collection pipes.

The project is expected to use clean energy in line with the government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

US-headquartered CDM Smith is the main project consultant and is supported by Beirut-headquartered Dar al-Handasah and Netherlands-based KPMG.

Image: Aqaba, Pixabay