The Southern Waste Management Partnership has become the latest major Northern Irish waste group to see its contract procurement process rocked by the withdrawal of one of its two final bidders, letsrecycle.com can reveal.
A spokeswoman for the Partnership which represents eight Northern Irish councils and is known as SWaMP2008 said a consortium of Greenstar Holdings and Biogen Power had walked away from bidding for the deal.
This means that a bid by Irish construction and engineering firm Quinn Group and Italian technology firm Entsorga is now the only bid in contention for the contract, which is worth around 800 million over its 25-year operational life.
The procurement process for the SWaMP2008 deal has been dogged with withdrawals, with the organisation forced to name a two-bidder shortlist in November 2010 following the decision by two consortium bids to abort from the tendering process (see letsrecycle.com story).
Commenting on the withdrawals of the Greenstar-Biogen consortium, a spokeswoman said: SWaMP2008 has been informed by one of its bidders, the Greenstar-Biogen consortium, of its decision to withdraw from the tendering process for a residual waste treatment contract in the southern region of Northern Ireland.
SWaMP2008 is continuing the competitive tendering process with the one remaining bidder Quinn Group.
Procurement
The spokeswoman said that the consortium had alerted SWaMP2008 to its plans to withdrawal just over a week ago but declined to comment on the reasons behind the move.
SWaMP2008 had originally set out a timetable to name a preferred bidder for the deal in 2011; however, it is currently unclear how this withdrawal affects this ambition.
Questions have been raised by industry sources in the province over whether SWaMP2008 will be forced to return to the marketplace to retender the deal after being left with just one bidder in the procurement process.
SWaMP2008 is comprised of: Armagh city & borough council; Banbridge district council; Cookstown district council; Craigavon borough council; Dungannon & South Tyrone borough council; Fermanagh district council; Newry & Mourne district council; and, Omagh district council.
Withdrawal
The withdrawal of the joint Greenstar/Biogen bid comes one month after another Greenstar-led consortium this time with energy giant E.ON Energy – was put into pole position for the arc21 organisations long-term residual waste contract following the withdrawal of SITA UK (see letsrecycle.com story).
Speaking at the time, a spokesman for arc21 said that the organisation was seeking advice from Northern Irelands Department for Environment (DOE) as to how to proceed with the tender process.
And, in a statement issued to letsrecycle.com this week, a spokesman for the DOE said: [DOE] has on-going close engagement with each of the Waste Management Groups and has full confidence in arc21’s ability to determine the most appropriate way forward for its procurement on foot of SITA UK’s withdrawal from the competition.
Major deals
The SWaMP2008 and arc21 contracts represent two of three major deals being let in the province, with the third known as the North West Residual Waste Management Group (NWRWMG) currently down to a two-bidder shortlist.
The two bidders for the NWRWMG deal are a consortium of civil engineers Brickkiln, construction company Sisk and services firm United Utilities and a lone bid by Greenstar Holdings UK (see letsrecycle.com story).
Discussing the state of the three major waste deals as a whole, the DOE spokesman said: The department is fully committed to achieving the environmental objectives associated with the Strategic Waste Infrastructure Programme, and to that end continues to support the delivery by all three regional Waste Management Groups in Northern Ireland of their major waste infrastructure projects.
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