Spanish infrastructure group ACCIONA has been awarded an eight-year contract worth €35 million ($37.5 million) to operate and maintain a major phase of Cairo’s Gabal El Asfar wastewater treatment complex, one of the world’s largest such facilities, as Egypt pushes to upgrade critical water infrastructure in the face of mounting climate and population pressures.
The deal, awarded by Egypt’s Construction Authority for Potable Water and Wastewater (CAPW), tasks ACCIONA and its Egyptian partner DHCU with managing and rehabilitating two plants within the complex, each with a treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic metres per day.
The Gabal El Asfar facility overall treats 2.5 million cubic metres of wastewater daily, serving approximately eight million residents in eastern Cairo.
Situated northeast of the Egyptian capital, the Gabal El Asfar complex ranks as the largest wastewater treatment site in both Africa and the Middle East, and the third largest globally by capacity.
The facility plays a critical role in the city’s sanitation system and forms part of broader efforts by Egypt to modernise urban water services amid growing demand and environmental stressors.
ACCIONA’s latest award builds on a decade-long track record in Egypt’s water sector. The company led the expansion of the Gabal El Asfar plant in 2013, and in 2022, it won a separate contract to operate and maintain Phase I of the facility, which has a capacity of 1.5 million cubic metres per day.
The company’s presence in Egypt also includes work on the upper-level potable water network serving New Cairo, a satellite city east of the capital, as well as the construction of five major drinking water treatment plants across the country, including facilities in Rod El Farag, Mostorod and Helwan.
Elsewhere in the Nile basin, ACCIONA played a key role in the development of the Bahr Al Baqr wastewater treatment plant, currently the world’s largest by volume, with a capacity of 5.6 million cubic metres per day. The facility recycles water for agricultural use and is part of a national push to bolster water security and food self-sufficiency.
Egypt, the most populous Arab country, faces acute water scarcity, with per capita water availability well below the United Nations’ water poverty threshold. Authorities have accelerated investments in water reuse technologies and infrastructure modernisation, with international engineering firms playing a prominent role in these initiatives.
ACCIONA, which has been carbon neutral since 2016, reported global revenues of €19.2 billion in 2024. The Madrid-listed firm is active in more than 40 countries, with a portfolio covering renewable energy, sustainable transport, and water treatment.
