Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant (SWTP) in St. Petersburg

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In 2003 the municipality of St. Petersburg, Russia, granted a 12 year build, own and operate (BOT) contract to international consortium Nordvod for the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant. The plant was intended to operate in Southwest St. Petersburg and process wastewater from some 720,000 residents. The new plant was designed to process 330,000 cubic meters of sludge per day. The Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant (SWTP) in St. Petersburg was Russia’s first public-private partnership (PPP) scheme. The plant was expected to greatly improve water quality in the Baltic Sea. Construction consortium Nordvod was a special purpose joint venture created by local municipal water treatment agency Vodokanal (41%), the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (18%), and three contractors holding the remaining 41%: Skanska, Swedish construction company NCC and Finland's YIT Corp. Construction work on the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant started in 1987, but was abandoned in the 1990s for the lack of financing. Approximately one-fifth of the plant's concrete structures were completed. Nordvod paid US$36.7 million to buy the unfinished St. Petersburg's Southwest wastewater purification facility from St. Petersburg water utility Vodokanal. In 2003 the total cost of the project was estimated at EUR 188.75 million (US$ 203 million). Financial closure was reached March 2003, and work on the plant began the same month. The plant was completed in September 2005. The plant was operated for 12 years by Ecovod, a company with the same shareholding structure as Nordvod. The SWTP was the first project to be implemented under the framework of Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP), an international environmental program, initiated by the EU Commission, countries around the Baltic Sea and international financial institutes. The project was financed through contributions from Denmark, Finland and Sweden and the EU's Tacis program as well as through loans from the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Finnfund and Swedfund. The price of US$36.7 million to be confirmed (e-mail sent) Contact: Tom Bartos Bartost@ebrd.com None