Spanish infrastructure company Acciona announced on Tuesday that a consortium, of which it is a member, has been awarded a seven-year water cycle management contract in Saudi Arabia by the state-owned National Water Company (NWC).

Acciona said in a press statement that its consortium with compatriot Aqualia and local firms Tawzea and HAACO has been awarded the management, operation, and maintenance (MOM) contract, under the public-private partnership model, for the Southern Cluster, comprising the regions of Assir, Jazan, Baha and Najran in the south and hosing a total population of over five million.

NWC has divided the Kingdom into six clusters to incentivise the participation of the private sector in the management of water and sanitation in the country and improve their efficiency.

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The contract, which is NWC's fourth awarded to date, covers the management of 59 drinking water plants, 380 storage tanks, 330 pumping stations, 127 tanker filling stations, 20,000 kilometres of mains piping, 43 wastewater treatment plants, and 7,000 kilometres of collection networks, among other assets.

The total value of the Southern Cluster contract is 399 million Saudi riyals ($106 million), NWC said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

The statement said MOM contracts for the remaining clusters, namely Western and Northern, would be awarded by the end of February and March, respectively.

In November 2021, NWC had signed its second and third MOM contracts for the Central and Eastern clusters. A 358 million riyal ($95 million) contract for the Central cluster in the Riyadh region was signed with a consortium of Saudi Arabia's AlKhorayef and France's Veolia, while a 221 million riyal contract ($59 million) for the Eastern Cluster was signed with a consortium of Saudi Arabia's Miahona, France's Saur Group, and Philippine's Manila Water.

The first MOM contract, valued at 198 million Saudi riyals ($52.5 million), had been awarded to the Miahona-Saur Group-Manila Water consortium for the North-West Cluster in December 2020.

(Writing by SA Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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