Five teams have pre-qualified to bid for the Bulacan bulk water supply PPP project, north of Manila, Philippines.

The following shortlisted consortia submitted pre-qualification documents to the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on 20 October:

• 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).
• 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.

Final 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$540 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.

Eight 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;
• Mactan-Cebu International Airport Passenger Terminal Building; and
• LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension Operation & Maintenance.

Six 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;