Dubai Municipality expects to award the first package of its 25 billion UAE dirhams ($6.8 billion) strategic sewerage tunnels mega project by the end of 2025, a top municipality official said.

The Dubai Strategic Sewerage Tunnel (DSST) project aims to convert the current sewage system in Dubai to a gravity fed, low energy, sustainable solution, with an expected system life of 100 years.

"We have completed the feasibility study of the first package, and it is now in the prequalification stage. We are targeting by the end of next year to sign the first package," said Ahmad Al-Sabbah, Investment & PPP Expert, Dubai Municipality, while speaking at the PPP MENA forum in Dubai on Tuesday.

According to the official, DSST would be implemented in multiple phases (3) and packages through the public-private partnership (PPP) model over a period exceeding seven years. The selected consortiums would be responsible for the design, build, financing, operations, maintenance (DBFOM) of the assets, and their transfer back to Dubai Municipality.

US-based Parsons, which is the technical advisor for the project, had noted on its website that DSST will be procured and delivered in six packages.

In June 2023, The Executive Council of Dubai, chaired by Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, had approved the project’s development in partnership with the private sector at a total investment of AED80 billion.

According to Parsons, DSST works include building two deep wastewater tunnels, and the associated deep pump stations and link sewers. When complete, the project will eliminate over 100 pump stations throughout the city. The primary objectives for the project are to reduce the overall cost of treating wastewater in the Emirate, reduce carbon emissions (through the use of gravity systems), decrease power consumption, and prepare for Dubai’s expected population growth.

Dubai-based project intelligence portal MEED had reported last month that Dubai Municipality has pre-qualified Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) firms that can bid, along with investor and operation and maintenance (O&M) partners, for the contracts to develop four of the six packages of the project. Companies from the UAE, China, Spain, South Korea, Egypt, India, Turkey, Austria, Greece, France, Kuwait, Italy and Belgium have put in bids for the packages.

Local company Tribe Infrastructure is the project’s principal and financial advisor while UK-based Ashurst is the legal advisor for the project.

(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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