Gouda, the Netherlands - Imtech N.V. (technical services provider in Europe) has been chosen by Dwr Cymru Welsh Water as its preferred partner for a ten-year contract for managing and upgrading all its waste water assets throughout Wales to meet the latest legislative and environmental requirements. The total contract for Imtech is worth about 300 million euro over the ten-year period and will be delivered by Meica Process, a business unit of Meica Group Ltd., one of Imtech’s companies in the United Kingdom.

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water is one of ten private water companies in the United Kingdom. It is responsible in Wales and some adjacent parts of England for water supplies and wastewater treatment for 1.2 million households and 110,000 companies. Approximately 3 million people live in the overall catchment area.

Meica Group Ltd, which Imtech acquired in August 2003, is a successful technical service provider in the UK market. As well as providing multi-disciplinary technical services in the Greater London area, Meica (Imtech) is a strong national provider of complete technical solutions in the infrastructure market and particularly the market for water and waste water treatment. The company ranks among the top five specialists in this segment of the market in the United Kingdom and possesses all the know-how necessary to design, build, maintain and manage complete drinking water and wastewater treatment plants.

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water is already a client of Meica. The Imtech company qualified itself as a preferred partner of Dwr Cymru Welsh Water following a lengthy tendering, prequalification and assessment process. From 1st April 2005 until 1st April 2015, Meica (Imtech) will perform all technical modifications, upgrades and modernisations at more than 850 wastewater treatment plants. Together with other preferred partners, Meica (Imtech) will form part of an Asset Management Alliance that will jointly be responsible  with each company retaining its own particular responsibility – for handling design, construction, process/project management and complete technology at the Dwr Cymru Welsh Water plants. As well as Meica-Imtech (process partners  waste water programme), the alliance includes AMEC, Morrison Construction and Costain (civil engineering partners), Black & Veatch Contracting Ltd (process partners  clean water programme), Laing O’Rourke (mains rehabilitation) and Kelda and United Utilities (operations management partners). For each of the selected parties there is a separate maintenance contract.

Mike Brooker, Managing Director of Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, said: ´Each of the selected parties is the best in class in its own particular field and together they are capable of delivering the best continuity, quality and service to our customers. ´

Jim Steele, Managing Director of Meica (Imtech), is pleased with the achieved result: ´We worked for more than one year on qualifying for this sizable maintenance contract. The contract says a lot about our added-value in the market for wastewater and drinking water purification and the ability of our staff to work as an alliance partner. Moreover, the contract is an important reference for several water company pre-qualification processes in the UK in which we are currently involved.´

René van der Bruggen, Chairman of the Board of Management of Imtech, said: This contract is of strategic value to Imtech, not only with a view to our position in the UK, but also because of our vision of being able to export knowledge present in the UK to other European countries where Imtech is active. The European market for drinking water and wastewater is undergoing substantial changes and there are good opportunities for Imtech. What's more, the contract confirms that our acquisition of Meica was a good step in our strategy of achieving a top-three position in the UK market for the provision of technical services.