Macao Water: Seac Pai Van water plant construction by year-end

By
Kam Leong

The city’s sole water distributor Macao Water Supply Co.
Ltd. expects that the construction of the new water treatment plant in Seac Pai Van will start by the end of this year, adding it has no plans to increase local water fees for this year.
“We hope that we can commence construction of the first phase of the project within this year so that it can start production in 2019. We are confident that [this timeline] can be implemented as the government’s responses have been quite positive,” the Executive Director of the company, Nacky Kuan Sio Peng, told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s media Spring lunch yesterday.
According to Ms. Kuan, her company is now in discussion with the authorities on the details for the new water treatment plant, the fourth, in Seac Pai Van. The new plant, first proposed by the water distributor in 2014, is divided into two phases with an initial budget of around MOP1 to MOP1.5 billion.
“We submitted a report on the feasibility of the new water treatment plant to the government last year, which includes both technical proposals and suggestions,” the Executive Director said.
Macao Water estimates that the completion of the first phase of the project will boost the city’s daily water supply to 490,000 cubic metres per day from the current 390,000 cubic metres, attributable to the completion of the third phase of the Main Storage Reservoir Water Treatment Plant last September.
No plan for fee hike
Meanwhile, Ms. Kuan told reporters that the company had no plans to increase the city’s water fees for the moment, claiming the recent hike had already helped the company deal with soaring operational costs.
“As we only increased water fees last October, we temporarily don’t have any intention of adjusting water fees again,” the company’s top officer indicated.
Local government granted a 4.28 per cent increase to MOP5.12 (US$0.64) per cubic metre of water supplied to the city’s water users last September, which came into effect from the beginning of the third quarter. However, the approved raise was substantially lower than the 11.88 per cent requested by the water company last March.
“Even though our proposed increase was not totally approved, the granted hike has already helped us to relax a bit from our operational pressures and surging costs,” Ms. Kuan explained.
Meanwhile, the water company said yesterday that the city’s total water consumption had registered a year-on-year increase of 1.7 per cent due to more large-scale entertainment properties and infrastructure projects in the territory.
Macao Water is 85 per cent owned by joint venture Sino-French Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. Sino-French is half-half owned by French utility Suez Environnement and Hong Kong-listed NWS Holdings Ltd.
The latest NWS interim report released on Monday indicates that the sales volume of Macau Water Plant grew slightly by one per cent year-on-year for the six months ended December 31.