There is a bit of a backstory behind this. @Dungiven might also be interested.
In 2010, Egypt approved their public-private partnership (PPP) law. The New Cairo Waste Water Treatment Plant was awarded and built under this model with an Orascom and FCC Aqualia JV.
The Egyptian PPP Central Unit began conducting feasibility studies into building large scale desalination plants under this model. In 2011, a total of only 166,000 m3/d of desalinated water was being produced at Egypt in smaller private desalination plants servicing hotels and other commercial developments. Metito had largest at 18,000m3/d at Sharm El Sheikh.
Jan 2011 - Egyptian Revolution, in Feb 2011 President Mubarak resigns. Military SCAF caretaker rule. June 2012 Islamic President Morsi elected. July 2013 military coup d'état led by General El-Sisi. May 2014 El-Sisi elected President. Economic downturn during this period. President Sisi to focus on construction to boost economy. 2011 - Ethopia begins construction of The Grand Ethopian Renaissance Dam - Africa's largest hydroelectric dam. When complete, will reduce downstream Nile flows to Sudan and Egypt. Nile provides 90% of water Egypt uses. Egypt needs to develop desalination investment as an alternative. 2015 to 2018 - Egypt announces plans to build at least 15 new cities, including a new Capital, to support growth and reduce congestion in current cities.
RWL Water and Orascom signed a JV MoU in March 2015 to conduct a feasibility study to build an 80,000 m3/d plant at Sharm El Sheikh. Egyptian Government instead prioritizes 80,000 m3/d plant at Hurghada, awards in 2016 to Metito.
End 2017 desalination capacity at 700,000 m3/d. In April 2018, Egypt and Kuwait sign loan agreement for USD $100m to complete financing for 5 South Sinai seawater desalination plants. Housing Minister Madbouli announces plans for 19 desalination plants.
@ywtoh It looks like the initial RWL/Orascom feasibility study was not prioritized by the Egyptian government. Metito was already operating an 18,000 m3/d plant at Sharm El Sheikh and that plant now looks like it may be expanded to 40,000 m3/d in the future. Orascom have since been working with Metito on a number of projects.
Now that Fluence have secured their $50 million in debt financing plus completed the capital raise, it has allowed them to get back into the market for these projects. Prior to this financing, committing to projects in Egypt long-term would have been difficult. Hassan Allam looks to be a good partnership, as they are involved in a number of the new city projects being built. New Mansoura looks like it may eventually finish up at 150,000 m3/d as New Mansoura grows in multiple stages. While Hassan Allam has announced an initial stage 1 of 80,000 m3/d, there is some evidence it may start as 40,000 m3/d and be scaled up over time. I think it really depends on what funding is made available for the project and what time-frame it needs to be built over. While I hope it is a very short time before the contract is finalized, looking at other projects, it could still be another 6 months before Fluence gets final approval and is able to give the details of their involvement. We may get more info in the short term from the Egyptian ministry than from Fluence regarding the finer details. Total project cost of something in Egypt around 80,000 m3/d is in the region of $50 million USD, judging by other projects.
It should not be forgotten that because desalination is such a high drain on power networks, any city that needs to build a large scale desalination plant must also first increase current power station capacity or build a new one.
Delays are inevitable with these projects as funding is secured and infrastructure is scaled up. I have included an excerpt below of Hyflux being awarded an EPC project in 2016, which the Egyptian Government then changed to a BOT model, and they are now still negotiating the changes.
This is why Fluence now prefer to operate in the smaller middle market. The time-frames involved are much faster than the average 4 to 5 year negotiations and long builds of these larger projects. These projects should be viewed as a bonus, but the core business model really needs to revolve around winning bulk MABR, SUBRE, and Nirobox projects that are quickly deployed and more easily financed, with less execution risk.
Following the approval of the public-private partnership (PPP) law in April 2010, Egypt’s PPP Central Unit began conducting feasibility studies into developing desalination plants as a way to boost water supplies. After several studies, in early 2015, the PPP Central Unit revealed it was planning to tender three desalination projects with a combined total capacity of 140,000 cm/d in the third quarter of 2015. The PPP unit announced later that year that a further two or three desalination plants were due to be tendered in the second or third quarter of 2016, following the tendering and award of the initial projects. However, after a number of problems in the design stage, none of the projects proceeded under the independent power project (IPP) model and they were transferred to engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts.
The failure of the government to proceed with the long-awaited Abu Rawash wastewater project as a PPP scheme was a major blow for the private developers delivering Egypt’s growing pipeline of planned PPP desalination and water treatment projects in the short-term. The PPP Central Unit had selected the winning consortium for the Abu Rawash project in August 2015. However, in early 2017 the project was dropped from the country’s PPP programme and was awarded as a conventional EPC contract. ____________________________________
After one landmark success with the New Cairo WWTP in 2010, the Egyptian authorities have not awarded any of the further projects planned in the water sector as PPPs, after political and financial uncertainty hit investor confidence. Recent projects have been awarded directly due to the pressing need for new sources of water as a result of uncertainty between Egypt and its upstream neighbours over access to water from the Nile. ____________________________________
Egypt may face great water shortages after the building of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in the Nile basin, which will limit the amount of Nile water that reached Egypt. The dam has created tensions between the two countries, Egypt and Ethiopia. ____________________________________
Egypt has talked about new scenarios for ending the Nahdha Dam crisis, including the recycling of sewage and seawater desalination, as well as the construction of dams to reserve rainwater. This comes at a time when Egypt is implementing a plan to dispense with the Nile water in the border provinces and to set up desalination plants to meet Egypt's water needs, including the establishment of desalination plants in four governorates: North and South Sinai, the Red Sea and Marsa Matruh, at a cost of 50 billion pounds. It has a billion cubic meters of water production.
Negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Al Nahda Dam have stalled after reaching a dead end, and no agreement has been reached to avoid affecting Egypt's 55 billion cubic meters of Nile water. The Egyptian Minister of Irrigation, Dr. Mohamed Abdelati, revealed that the current deficit in water resources in Egypt represents 90%, is completed through the recycling of water, which represents 25% of the current use as well as the import of virtual water in the form of food commodities to meet the rest of the deficit. Egypt relies on Nile water at close to 90%, according to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. The Nile River provides Egypt with an average of 55.5 billion cubic meters per year, while it relies on the recycling of agricultural drainage water in the management of 11.70 billion cubic meters, benefiting 1.3 billion cubic meters Annually through wastewater recycling.
(20min delay)