Sweco awarded water-supply project in Jordan

Sweco president and CEO Mats Wappling

Sweco has been awarded what is believed to be one of its largest water-related contracts to date as part of a Jordanian initiative to improve access to drinking water in Amman.

“Sweco has over a century’s experience in conducting international consulting assignments, and is seeing an increased need for our expertise in the water and environmental area. This is especially true in the Middle East, where our experts have been engaged in several similar projects in recent years,” commented Sweco president and CEO Mats Wäppling.

Jordan is currently struggling with a severe water shortage. The new water-supply system will pump water along a 350 km water pipeline to the capital city. Sweco has been commissioned for project management and supervision of the large-scale construction project on behalf of the Jordanian government’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation, and will run for the next four years.

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When completed, the water-supply system will provide Amman’s population of 2.5 million residents with almost half of their water requirements. The new system will pump water from an aquifer in Rum in southern Jordan and transport it to Amman via the 350 km water pipeline. The water will be extracted from 55 wells drilled to a depth of around 600 metres.

The project is being carried out on a BOT (Build Operate Transfer) approach, in which a concessionaire will design, build and manage the pipeline for a period of 25 years, after which the project will be transferred to the client, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

Sweco is an international consulting group with combined expertise in engineering, environmental technology and architecture. It has 5,300 employees in ten countries and recorded annual sales of more than US$770 million in 2008. The company has projects currently underway in some 80 countries.