Five teams have submitted qualification documents for the Bulacan bulk water supply PPP project in Bulacan, north of Manila, Philippines.

According to Jose Patrick Rosales, PPP Center project development officer, the following consortia submitted prequalification documents to the MWSS (Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System) on 20 October:

• First Philippine Holdings Corp. and Abeima (subsidiary of Abengoa)
• Filinvest Agua, a consortium of Filinvest Development Corp., Tecnicas de Salinizacion de Agua SA (TEDAGUA, owned by ACS) and Black & Veatch Pte. Ltd.
• 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 Biwater International Ltd.

Companies including Marubeni Corp., Acciona Agua and Megawide Construction Corp. among others, had bought pre qualification documents and had attended the pre qualification conference, but finally decided not to participate in the tender process.

The list of selected teams is set to be announced in late November. Proposals are scheduled to be submitted between February and March of 2015. 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 30 years.

The total project investment is estimated at P24.4 billion (US$554.7 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.

Ten PPP projects have been awarded under the government's flagship infrastructure PPP program., so far:

• Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway Link Road;
• Ninoy Aquino International Airport Expressway;
• First phase of the PPP for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP);
• PSIP's second phase;
• Philippine Orthopedic Center modernization;
• Automatic Fare Collection System; and
• Mactan-Cebu International Airport Passenger Terminal Building.
• NAIA Expressway PPP project
• LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension Operation & Maintenance.
• PPP for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP) Phase II

Seven others have been rolled out:

• Integrated Transport System (ITS) Project-Southwest Terminal;
• ITS Project-South Terminal;
• Bulacan Bulk Water Supply Project;
• New Centennial Water Source Project;
• LRT Line 2 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) PPP project;
• Cavite and Laguna (CALA) Expressway PPP project;
• Cavite-Laguna Expressway;