The shortlists identify the bidders who met yesterday's (February 8) deadline under the invitation to submit outline solutions (ISOS) stage of the competitive dialogue process being used by the Authority, which handles waste disposal for seven London boroughs, to procure the £4 billion deal.
We felt on balance that pursuing a judicial review, while justified on many levels would not have been in the best interests of local residents
Cllr Clyde Loakes, NLWA
The announcement represents the first stage in the NLWA's revised procurement timetable, which it unveiled as it confirmed it did not plan to pursue a judicial review over Defra's decision to withdraw PFI funding for the project as part of the October 2010 Spending Review (see letsrecycle.com story).
The five bidders yesterday shortlisted for the waste services aspect of the contract are:
• Biffa Waste Services Ltd;
• FCC Skanska (Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA and Skanska Infrastructure Development UK Ltd) (consortium);
• SITA Lend Lease (SITA UK Ltd and Catalyst Lend Lease) (consortium);
• Urbaser SA (with Shanks PFI Investment Ltd , Covanta Energy Ltd and Balfour Beatty) consortium
• Veolia ES Aurora Ltd.
This means Viridor, who appeared in the July 2010 long-list named by the NLWA for this aspect of the contract (see letsrecycle.com story), are no longer involved in the procurement.
While the NLWA has stressed in the past it is technology neutral, the reference technology it used to originally secure PFI funding included delivery of two MBTs, a combined heat and power facility, two materials recycling facilities (MRFs), both composting and anaerobic digestion facilities and four new and refurbished civic amenity sites
The five bidders shortlisted for the fuel use aspect of the contract are:
• Covanta Energy Ltd;
• E.ON Energy from Waste AG / Wheelabrator Technologies Inc (consortium);
• SSE Generation Ltd;
• Veolia ES Aurora Ltd;
• Viridor Waste Management Ltd (Viridor and Keppel Seghers Engineering Singapore Pte Ltd (consortium).
This means cement company Cemex, which had appeared on the original long-list, is no longer in the running for the deal, which is likely to involve providing an outlet for 320,000 tonnes-a-year of solid recovered fuel produced under the waste management part of the contract.
Judicial Review
Commenting on the decision to move forward with the procurement, the chair of the NLWA, councillor Clyde Loakes reiterated his disappointment at the government's decision to withdraw PFI support.
“However, we need to focus on what is the best course of action for the NLWA, which will enable us to achieve our ambition of providing a modern sustainable waste management solution, which offers best value for money to local Council tax payers,” he said.
“We felt on balance that pursuing a judicial review, while justified on many levels would not have been in the best interests of local residents.
“We have instead set out a revised timetable which will provide additional time for bidders to update their solutions and to resubmit. We have received an excellent market response from many of the leading waste and energy companies and we look forward to continuing to work with them as our plans progress,” he added.
The NLWA would not comment on what arrangements would be made to secure funding as an alternative to the withdrawn PFI money.
Timetable
Under the NLWA's revised timetable, it aims to evaluate the bidders' outline solutions by April 2011, with a report being submitted to the Authority's meeting that month.
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