Brazilian consortium wins first sewerage PPP offered by Sanepar

A consortium formed by Brazilian firms Aegea, Perfin and Kinea won bidding process on Friday for a PPP contract offered by Paraná state water utility Sanepar, as the publicly owned prepares others.

Up for grabs was a contract for sewerage services in 16 municipalities. The contract, which has a term of 24 years and five months, outlines investments of 1.2bn reais (US$250mn) to benefit 640,000 people in the region. 

It involves the operation and maintenance of sewerage and effluent collection, transport, treatment and disposal services.

Saneamento Consultoria, the consortium formed by the three domestic firms, beat competition from three other bidders: Acciona Saneamento, Iguá Saneamento and the group Consórcio Parceria Paranaense de Saneamento, created by MLC Infra Construção, Cembra Engenharia, Dang Construtora, Castilho Engenharia and Construferri Saneamento.

The criterion to define the contract winner was the largest discount on the reference price for the services, set at 4.60 reais per cubic meter of sewage, with Saneamento Consultoria offering 3.20 reais.

"This PPP auctioned today is one of the steps we're taking to achieve the objectives of providing water and sewerage coverage for the entire Paraná population before the date determined by the law, which is 2033," Sanepar CEO Claudio Stabile told BNamericas.

"As part of this effort to advance with the full coverage of the population, we're going to hold two more bidding processes for other PPP contracts before the end of this year," he added.

Sanepar is currently conducting a public consultation to assess the details of the two other PPP contracts, which involve sewerage connections in the west and center-east of the state.

The two contracts will cover a total of 195 municipalities and are expected to have term of 26 years.

The estimated combined investments of these two contracts to be offered are around 4.7bn reais during the entire period of the concessions.