Egypt prequalifies 17 Consortia for its water desalination program

CAIRO – 1 May 2023: The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE) prequalified 17 consortia to be invited to the tendering process of the development of a number of seawater desalination plants powered by renewable energy in different locations across Egypt.

The prequalification was carried out through the technical assistance of the Ministry of Finance’s Public-Private Partnership Central Unit, within the first phase of Egypt’s water desalination program.

Prequalified consortia are classified into four categories based on previous experience in various desalination projects regionally and globally. In the category of desalinating up to one million m3/day, there are 11 consortia.

Those are ACWA Power; Sumitomo Corporation; Enertech Holding Co/Utico FZC/SEPCO; Concrete Plus/Abengoa/Cuasar; Infinity Energy/GS Inima/China Energy Engineering Corporation; AEW/Gama/SOGEX/WABAG; Sacyr Agua; TAM Environmental Services/Desalia SL/Al Ahly Capital; Orascom Construction/Scatec/Toyota Tsusho Corp/Acciona Agua/Metito Utilities; Hassan Allam Holding/Engie; and, Meridiam Infrastructure Africa Fund II/Suez International/Elsewedy Electric.

As for the category of desalinating up to 600,000 m3/day, there are four consortia that are AMEA Power Ltd/ Safbon/ICAT; Aqualia/Globaleq/Ignis/Samcrete; Taqa Arabia/Al Ghanem International; and, Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd/Asia-Africa Green Energy Investment.

There is one consortium in each of the categories of up to 400,000 m3/day and 200,000 m3/day, and that are Sinohydro Hong Kong Holding Ltd/ Qingdao Desalination/ SEPCO III Electric Power, and Desal Egypt/EMCO Engineering/Amarenco Solarize Egypt/Redcon Construction, respectively.

Egypt’s water desalination program entails the launch of several projects possessing a total capacity of 8.85 million m3/day by 2050. The first phase of which is planned to generate 3.35 million m3/day by 2025.

The program aims to attract foreign and local strategic investors who would develop, construct, and operate the plants as well as power them by renewable energy.  The program equally targets to achieve technology transfer and localization of the manufacturing of crucial desalination components.

The first phase's offtakers are the New and Urban Communities Authority, the Holding Company for Water and Wastewater, and the Suez Canal Authority.

TSFE is part of a special committee formed by a decree issued by the prime minister of Egypt, and that comprises various stakeholders in Egypt’s water desalination program, as it oversees the whole pre-qualification and the tender processes.

TSFE has been mandated by the committee to manage the offering process for the first phase, including the prequalification of companies interested to submit proposals for developing seawater desalination plants. This comes as part of TSFE’s efforts to structure investable transactions for the private sector where TSFE would invest in the projects alongside the private sector whilst working actively on realizing Egypt’s ambitions in the sector.

To this end, TSFE has retained the services of The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to contribute to structuring and implementing the first batch of water desalination projects in partnership with the private sector. That entails retaining technical and legal consultants, as well as running necessary environmental and social impact assessment studies in order to bring to the market a solid investment product.