Philippines' San Miguel, Korea Water top $518 mln water project bidding

MANILA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A consortium of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp and Korea Water Resources Corp is the frontrunner to bag a 24.4 billion pesos ($518 million) project to supply bulk water north of the capital, a government agency said on Tuesday.

The partners edged out Team Polaris-Manila Water Co Inc and Prime Alloy Water consortium of Prime Water Infrastructure Corp, MTD Capital Bhd and Biwater International Ltd for the Bulacan Bulk Water Supply Project, the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Centre said in its official social media accounts.

San Miguel and Korea Water offered to supply treated water at 8.50 pesos per cubic metre, cheaper than the 9.75 pesos of Prime Alloy and 10.65 pesos of Team Polaris, the PPP Centre said. It did not say when the project will be formally awarded.

The government agency said it was looking for the bidder with the lowest offer to supply bulk water.

The Bulacan project is the government's first water PPP project. The winning bidder will provide treated bulk water to various water districts in the northern province of Bulacan. It will finance, design, build and maintain water source and treatment facilities for a period of 32 years.

Since launching the PPP programme in 2010, the government has so far awarded 11 infrastructure projects worth 193 billion pesos ($4.1 billion), while 41 more projects worth $18.9 billion are in the pipeline. ($1 = 47.1050 Philippine pesos) (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)