Suez and Mitsubishi on shortlist for Red Sea Dead Sea project

Jordan’s Water and Irrigation Ministry has shortlisted five consortia to submit definitive bids for phase one of the Red Sea Dead Sea project.

They are: CNTIC Consortium (China National Technical Import & Export Corporation); Hutchison Water International Holdings; Korea Water Resources Corporation; Mitsubishi Corporation; and Suez International SAS.

The announcement follows a pre-qualification process in which 17 consortia expressed an interest to participate in the project.

Phase one will be structured as a build, operate, transfer contract over 25 years. Construction is due to begin in 2018 and complete in 2020, including an intake facility to abstract 700 million m3/year of Red Sea water, a treatment and desalination plant with capacity of 80 to 100 million m3/year, at a site north of Aqaba airport; and 17 kilometres of 900 mm freshwater pipeline. 

The cost of the entire Red Sea Dead Sea project is pegged at $1.1 billion, of which $400 million has been raised by Jordan.

Israel and Jordan are still to conclude a bi-lateral agreement, whereby Israel acquires desalinated water on a “take or pay” basis, and Jordan buys the same amount of Lake Tiberius water.

The Red Sea Dead Sea project took a big step forward in December 2013 when Jordan and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington DC, US.

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