Middle East/Africa

After much anticipation Bahrain's Ministry of Works and Ministry of Finance have awarded a consortium headed by South Korea's Samsung Engineering Company the Muharraq wastewater treatment facility contract.

The group, also including Abu Dhabi financial services firm Invest AD and the United Kingdom's United Utilities International, will build and operate the treatment plant as part of a BOT (build, operate and transfer) contract.

The plant will process 100,000 cubic metres per day of wastewater and is scheduled to achieve mechanical completion after 30 months. It is hoped facility will have the capacity to expand to 160,000 cubic metres per day in the future. It will serve a strategically important area of Manama, including the international airport, a new industrial park, and a popular residential zone.

The project includes taking over, upgrading and operating a portion of the city's wastewater network. Samsung Engineering and United Utilities will handle operations and maintenance for 24 years after completion.

Bahrain's Ministry of Works and Ministry of Finance awarded the concession following a financial and technical evaluation of six competitive bids submitted in February 2010. Before this stage, 16 companies made it to the pre-qualified list, including Suez Environment (Degremont), Sembcorp Industries and Veolia Water.

Park Ki-Seok, president and chief executive officer of Samsung Engineering, said that as the first BOO/BOT project in Bahrain, this project will serve as an integral part of Bahrain's sanitary infrastructure.

All three partners in the consortium are providing equity for the project, with Samsung committing 45%, Invest AD 35% and United Utilities 20%. Developed over three and a half years, the project is being debt financed by the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM), Japanese lender Sumitomo Mitsui (SMBC), and French banks Natixis and Crédit Agricole.

Wind powered desalination has taken a step forward following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Germany company Synlift Systems and Jade Consultancy in Bahrain. The MoU will see green desalination technologies being introduced to the Gulf for the first time. Feasibility studies will look at combined or single wind energy and reverse osmosis desalination systems. Laboratory studies simulating Gulf region conditions are said to have shown such a concept is technically viable and economical.

Oman's Public Authority for Electricity and Water has awarded a five-year contract to international consultancy Arcadis in a bid to professionalise its water management. The multi-million deal will see Malcolm Pirnie, the water division of Arcadis, support Veolia Water in managing the country's water sector in the Middle East. Responsibilities under the contract will include a review of the authority's information and communication technologies and development of operation manuals and procedures.

A series of solar powered water units have been installed in Kenya which have helped bring water to nearly 8000 people per month. Installed by HabiHut in cooperation with Kenyan-based NGO Umande Trust, the pilot project saw each of kiosks supplying on average 2,600 customers per month. Solar panels provided light as well as cell phone charging capabilities. It is hoped the scheme will clean water globally.

Singapore water treatment firm Hyflux has said that its projects in Libya could be delayed due to political uncertainty in the country, according to Reuters. This followed the firm recently securing the $100 million seawater desalination contract in Tobruk and further negotiation on two projects in Benghazi and Tripoli. Hyflux's two seawater desalination projects in Algeria remain unaffected by the demonstrations and are progressing as scheduled, the news agency said.

A research programme that will focus on identifying native plant life to naturally clean industrial water at the ExxonMobil Research Qatar (EMRQ) will be led by Qatari national Dr Mohamed Yacob al-Sulaiti. Dr al-Sulaiti will lead the project to investigate water treatment technologies and has a PhD in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University, where his research focus area was 'Water Resources and Management- Groundwater Modelling'.

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) in Saudi Arabia has awarded a contract to Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction to co-build what has been touted as the largest single multi-effect distillation (MED) desalination unit in the world. The US$124 million agreement will see the unit constructed for the second phase of the plant at Yanbu, which will have a capacity of 15 MIDG (68,190 m3/d) and aims to supply potable water for use by 150,000 to 200,000 people.

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