FCC wins $320m Egypt deal
01 October 2017
FCC Aqualia, a water management company based in Europe, has been awarded a $320-million contract to design, build and operate a wastewater treatment plant in Cairo, Egypt.
A unit of global environment, water and infrastructure works specialist FCC, the company said this contract is the largest-of-its-kind undertaken abroad. The project will be delivered in collaboration with FCC Construcción.
It is part of the ambitious programme for water and sewerage actions by Egypt’s government and has the backing of the African Development Bank.
The Abu Rawash plant, one of the largest wasterwater treatment plants in the world, will treat 1.6 million cu m daily and serve more than six million people.
The DBO (design, build and operate) contract, includes a three-year operation and maintenance period.
Although the initial agreement with the Egyptian government included a concession for 20 years (including financing), the economic situation in Egypt made it advisable for the investment in the project to be assumed entirely by the Egyptian state, abandoning the original idea of a concession type contract.
The scope of the work includes the enlargement of the existing primary treatment plant from 1.2 million cu m/day to 1.6 million cu m/day and the addition of biological treatment.
This is the third major project undertaken by the firm in Egypt after it was chosen in 2010 to design, build, finance and operate for 20 years the New Cairo wastewater treatment plant.
Last year, the Egypt awarded FCC Aqualia the project for the El Alamein desalination plant. Located on the Mediterranean coast in an area of growing tourist development, the plant will treat 150,000 cu m/day.
