Cadagua lands desalination plant contract in Oman

Muscat City Desalination Co SAOC (MCDC), a consortium between Malaysia-based Malakoff International Ltd (MIL), Sumitomo Corp of Japan and Cadagua SA of Spain, has signed a 20-year water purchase agreement with Oman Power and Water Procurement Co (OPWP), according to a filing by MIL's parent company MMC Corp on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange on Wednesday.

The agreement for the sale and purchase of potable water will also ensure the guaranteed contracted net desalination capacity of 42MIGD or 191,000 m3 per day from the Ghubra water desalination project. In its disclosure, MMC Corp said that MCDC signed the agreement with OPWP on February 11, 2013. The project was awarded to the MIL-led consortium in November last year on a build, own, operate basis utilising reverse-osmosis technology.

"The targeted commercial operation date of the project is in the fourth quarter of 2014," said MMC Corp in its filing. MCDC, which is a closed joint stock company, was incorporated in the sultanate on January 19, 2013, by MIL together with its consortium partners, Sumitomo and Cadagua as a special purpose vehicle to undertake the Ghubra project. MIL and Sumitomo each holds a 45 per cent interest in MCDC while Cadagua owns the remaining ten per cent.

MMC Corp's disclosure added that MIL, Sumitomo and Cadagua being the founding shareholders of MCDC, had also signed, on February 11, 2013, a project founders agreement (PFA) with Electricity Holding Company (EHC), a joint stock company wholly owned by the Government of Oman.

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Cadagua has completed several projects in the Persian Gulf, including the Medina-Yanbu desalination plant in Saudi Arabia; the Darsait water treatment plant in Oman; and the Al Zawrah desalination plant in Ajman, UAE.

Founded in 1971, Cadagua has built over 220 drinking water treatment, desalination and sewage treatment plants and over 140 industrial water treatment plants in Spain, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Cyprus, Algeria, Tunisia, Chile, Venezuela, Portugal, France, the UK, Poland and India, among other countries.