Madrid, December 1st, 2008. Befesa, through its subsidiary Befesa Agua – an international technology company specialized in generation and management of hydric resources – has closed the financing for the design, construction, funding and 25-year operation of Tenes seawater desalination plant, in Algeria. The amount of the debt is $185 million.

The project, awarded to Befesa in April this year, is to be executed in the city of Tenes, on the Mediterranean coast some 200 km from Algiers. It will allow desalination of 200,000 m3/day by reverse osmosis technology, and the global investment will be $231 million. Eighty percent of this investment will be non-recourse financed to the shareholders by a syndicate of banks headed by Credit Populaire d’Algerie.

This is the third desalination contract awarded to Befesa Agua in Algeria under a concession regime that includes financing and construction of the plants, and subsequent 25-year operation of the same. The first of these desalination plants – Skikda – is at the pre-commissioning stage, and the second, Honaine, is currently under construction.

When the three desalination plants – representing an overall investment of $575 million – are operational, Befesa Agua’s installed water production capacity in Algeria will be 500,000 m3/day. This will allow drinking water to be supplied to a population of more than 2,500,000. Estimates are for earnings for water sale from the three plants over their 25 years in operation to exceed $2,385 million. These projects are part of an ambitious desalination plan the government of Algeria has rolled out to mitigate the country’s lack of hydric resources.

The Spanish State-owned Company P4R, in which the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) participates with the mission to support and foster the internationalization process of Spanish companies, has acted as financial advisor to Befesa Agua on the three operations.

According to Befesa’s chairman, Javier Molina, “the closing of this financing transaction demonstrates the capacity of Befesa to continue to grow in an economic environment as difficult as the current one thanks to our geographic diversity, capacity and leadership in technology”.

Befesa – Abengoa’s environmental services subsidiary – is an international company specialized in integral industrial waste management, and water management and generation. Its activities focus on providing environmental services to industry and on the construction of environmental infrastructures. It is a listed company and closed the 2007 financial year with capitalization in excess of €550 million (www.befesa.com).