ACCIONA awarded contract for Africa’s largest WWTP

The Construction Authority for Drinking Water and Wastewater (CAPW) of Egypt, has awarded ACCIONA Agua - jointly with the German company Passavant-Roediger and the Egyptian company Hassan Allam Construction, one of the largest Egyptian construction companies - the contract for the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Gabal Al Asfar, on the outskirts of Cairo, with a budget of over 120 million euros.

The project includes the design, construction and commissioning of the WWTP as well as its operation and maintenance for two years. It is expected that the duration of the works will be about three years. The plant will have a treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic meters per day and will cater to the needs of the eastern part of the Egyptian capital, equivalent to a population of about 8 million people.

After construction of this new facility is completed, the Gabal Al Asfar complex will have a treatment capacity of 2.5 million cubic meters per day and will become the largest WWTP in Africa and the Middle East, and the third largest in the world.

This is the fourth major contract that ACCIONA Agua has been awarded in Africa in recent years. Recently, ACCIONA also won the tender for the construction of the drinking water treatment plant Ntoum 7 in Libreville, Gabon, and in late 2012, in partnership with the Moroccan construction company EMT, it was awarded the contract for the Oum Azza DWTP to strengthen the water supply to the coastal zone of Rabat-Casablanca. In 2011, it put into operation the Fouka desalination plant in Algeria, which produces 120,000 cubic meters of water daily and ensures water supply to 500,000 inhabitants in the Zeralda area and west Algiers.

ACCIONA Agua already has several projects in Egypt. Among the most significant ones is the Abnoub & el Fath WWTP, with a capacity of 80,000 cubic meters, serving 750,000 people, and the Kattaneya WWTP, with a capacity of 100,000 cubic meters and serving one million people. In addition, it operates five DWTPs - Almerya, Rod el Farag, Mostorod, North Helwan I and North Helwan II - with a total capacity of over 600,000 cubic meters, for an estimated population of 6.1 million people.