ExCo proposes new 10-year contract
with Air-Fin for water production
PHILIPSBURG--The Island Council is scheduled to meet today in a public session to discuss a proposal from the Executive Council to sign a new contract for the delivery of water. The current contract with Enerserve will be terminated and a new 10-year contract will be signed with the company Air-Fin for the guaranteed delivery of 12,300m3 a day.
Government shall pay Air-Fin US $1.417 per cubic meter for water supplied up to the amount of 4,489,500m3 per year including electricity costs which is calculated at a fixed price of US $0.13 per Kilowatt Hour. Any increase in electricity cost shall be added to Air-Fin’s service fee on a pass through basis. For all water supplied in excess of the 4,489,500m3 per year up to the plant’s maximum capacity, Government shall pay US $0.92.
These prices are not included in investment costs and additional operational costs needed to comply with the new Federal Ordinance on quality of water. In the agreement with Air-Fin, it is explicitly stated that the water produced has to comply with the law.
Enerserve signed a 10-year contract in 2000 which will expire in 2010. But, this contract will be annulled, Public Works Commissioner Roy Marlin informed the Island Council without stating what this contract annulment would cost. A new 10-year contract will be signed with Air-Fin whose managing director Willem Barendsen was also the founder of Enerserve.
Enerserve produces 9,370m3 of water a day while the current demand is 12,000m3. Based on this increase of demand, a new bidding process was initiated and Air-Fin turned in the lowest bid, according to the Commissioner. After a negotiating process between the Executive Council and Air-Fin, a new 10-year contract for the guaranteed delivery of 12,300m3 of water a day was drafted.
The contract states, among other things, that Air-Fin will receive from the island government of St. Maarten the existing water production plant at Cay Bay in ownership including the existing main electrical cable to the plant, the existing electrical cable to the salt water feed pump houses including transformers as well as any new electrical cable and transformers for the new plant to be built at Cupecoy.
There a new reverse osmosis plant will be built with a capacity of 3,000m3 per day raising the total capacity of water production to 16,500m3 per day. Air-Fin will start up this new plant no later than six months after the date that a location for that plant is made available by government.
Should the current owner and operator of the existing plant at Cay Bay location, Enerserve, fail to vacate those facilities within six months after the new agreement has been signed, Air-Fin will nevertheless start with the operation of the new plant and government guarantees to purchase a daily average of 2,750m3 of water produced at a price of US $1.50.
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