Saudi Arabia awards first new regional water management contract

A consortium of SAUR (France), Miahona (local) and Manila Water (Philippines) has been awarded a management, operations and maintenance (MOM) contract for the Medina and Tabuk regions in Saudi Arabia under the kingdom's National Water strategy

Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company (NWC) has awarded a contract to an international consortium for the first of six new management, operations and maintenance (MOM) contracts.

NWC awarded a contract to a consortium of SAUR (France), Miahona (local) and Manila Water (Philippines) for the MOM contract for the North West Cluster, which covers the Medina and Tabuk regions of the kingdom. The consortium will deliver water and wastewater services for 3.5 million people in the cluster under a performance-based contract.

The seven-year contract will be worth SR198m ($52.5m), NWC revealed in a statement.

Under the new national water strategy, 13 administrative districts have been merged to operate under the umbrella of 6 new areas for which the MOM contracts will be awarded.

SAUR, in consortium with the local Zamil, was previously awarded a 6-year water supply and wastewater management contract in 2010. Under the six-year maintenance contract, the SAUR-Zamil consortium provided operation and maintenance (O&M) services for 4,200km of drinking water supply pipelines and 2,500km of wastewater collection pipelines.