A total of three teams have bid for the Bulacan bulk water supply PPP project located in north of Manila, Philippines.

There were five teams shortlisted for the project, but two of them did not submit their financial and technical proposals. The three teams that have bid for the project are the following:

• San Miguel Corp. - Korean Water Resources Corp.
• Team Polaris - Manila Water, a consortium of Manila Water Company Inc., M.E. Sicat Construction Inc. and JH Patawaran Construction Inc.
• Prime-Alloy Water, a consortium of Prime Water Infrastructure Corp., Malaysia's MTD Capital BHD, and United Kingdom's Biwater International Ltd.

The two teams that did not submit their financial and technical proposals are the following:

• First Philippine Holdings Corp. and Spain's Abeinsa Infraestructuras Medio Ambiente S.A. (subsidiary of Abengoa)
• Filinvest Agua, a consortium of Filinvest Development Corp. and Spain's Tecnicas de Salinizacion de Agua SA (TEDAGUA, owned by ACS).

The project is set to be awarded by the end of 2015 and the new facilities are expected to be operational by mid 2017.

The project involves the following: construction of treated water transmission mains, including line appurtenances from the water treatment plants (WTPs) to the agreed delivery/interconnection points of the municipalities; construction of WTPs and ancillary facilities; construction of treated water reservoirs; construction of pumping stations; installation of flow metering devices after the WTPs, pumping stations, transmission branch points and at the agreed delivery/interconnection points; and installation of appropriate pressure monitoring stations.

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operation and maintenance basis through a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract agreement. The contract period will be 32 years.

The total project investment is estimated at P24.4 billion (US$520.4 million).

This bulk water supply project shall reduce groundwater extraction and use of deep wells in the province, which are currently being discouraged due to adverse environmental impact. The PPP Center noted the project will supply 24 municipalities in Bulacan with treated raw water.