Vol 3, Issue 5 (May 2002)
Analysis
- A word from the Editor
Welcome to May’s GWI, an issue we have published to coincide with the IDA’s conference on the financing of desalination projects. For those of you attending the event at the Four Seasons hotel, welcome to London and we hope you enjoy the occasion. For our regular readers, we trust you find this month’s focus on combined power and water schemes to be of interest.
General
- Banks mull Ajman financing
Project sponsors Thames Water and Black & Veatch are working towards financial close of the Ajman wastewater concession by the third quarter of the year. The concession was originally due to achieve financial close by 19 May but July or August is now thought a more realistic date.
- Financing Saudi Arabia’s desal needs
The funds needed to meet Saudi Arabia’s projected demand for desalinated water amount to $50 billion over the next 20 years, if the Saline Water Conversion Corporation’s (SWCC’s) figures are to be believed. If project finance is to go some way in meeting these levels of investment, some far-reaching changes to the Kingdom’s legal and regulatory regimes will be required.
- Lebanon’s wastewater programme
Ongoing and future projects to build WwTPs along the Lebanese coast will cost in the region of $750 million. Several plants are already under construction or in the final stages of bidding, including those at Tripoli and Saida (Sidon). The total cost of building treatment plants inland and constructing sewer systems to network both inland and coastal areas is put at over $1 billion.
- Libya: a tale of two strategies
Libya is an unusual water market for foreign investors, playing host to water projects at opposite ends of the spectrum, from small, local desalination plants, to the so-called eighth wonder of the world – the Great Man-made River scheme (GMMR).
- Risks and opportunities in private desalination projects
The production of potable and other usable water from seawater at the utility level is a technically established process used primarily in the Middle East but increasingly also in other parts of the world to meet growing water demand.
- RWE Aqua enters Polish market
THAMES WATER SUBSIDIARY RWE AQUA has acquired 34% of the municipal water supply and services enterprise PwiK in Da² browa Górnicza, Poland. RWE Aqua paid €8.6 million for the shareholding. This is the group’s first significant activity in the Polish market and only the third water privatisation project in the country.
- Sama concession process called off again
São Paulo state water company Sabesp has managed to obtain an injunction suspending the 30-year BOT sewage concession auction proposed by Saneamento de Maua (Sama), the basic sanitation services concession-holder in Maua, Greater São Paulo, for the second time this yea
- Saudi gas initiative latest
The Saudi gas initiative is expected to create downstream investment opportunities in water and power plants.
- Sicily facing summer drought
After one of the driest winters on record, the authorities in Italy’s southern-most region, the island of Sicily, are taking tough measures to cope with an unprecedented water crisis.
- The growing impact of desalination
As the long talked-of crisis in water availability becomes a reality in the world’s most pressed regions, the need to fully exploit every supply option is becoming ever more urgent. Among these options, the long established technology of desalination appears to be enjoying a period of unprecedented expansion.
Companies
- Aguas Argentinas suspends debt repayments
THE BUENOS AIRES-BASED WATER SERVICES GROUP Aguas Argentinas has informed the financial market authorities of its intention to “postpone temporarily” the payment of financial charges contracted with a number of institutions.
- Messier restrained by French president
A controversial project to reduce the Vivendi group’s stake of 63% in Vivendi Environnement (VE) to below 50% has been abandoned by the group’s chairman Jean-Marie Messier following intense pressure from the French president, Jacques Chirac, and directors of Vivendi Universal.
- Sabesp share sale goes ahead
THE SÃO PAULO STATE GOVERNMENT HAS ANNOUNCED its intention to sell 16.2% of its 88.33% ordinary shareholding in Companhia de Saneamento do Estado de São Paulo (Sabesp), Latin America’s largest water company. Sabesp has 24.6 million domestic drinking water clients and 16.2 million wastewater service clients.
Performer of the month
- UK water industry shows modest rally
The UK water industry made a late rally in April, pushing the FTSE water index into the black. The water index jumped more than 183 points, or 6%, marking the largest monthly gain in well over a year. Across the board, the UK water industry saw positive gains for the month.
