Razon–led firm completes P26 billion Wawa dam project

MANILA, Philippines — WawaJVCo Inc., a joint venture led by billionaire Enrique Razon, said it has completed the construction of the P26-billion Upper Wawa Dam and is now preparing for its commercial operation in December.

The company, a unit of Razon-led Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc., said a handover ceremony from the engineering, procurement and construction was recently held to mark the successful completion of the dam’s construction works.

“The completion of the Upper Wawa Dam reflects Prime Infra and WawaJVCo’s ability to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects on time. This marks the beginning for one of our most critical water projects,” said Melvin John Tan, Prime Infra’s market sector lead for water and WawaJVCo president.

WawaJVCo said it conducted a series of tests to evaluate the Upper Wawa Dam’s performance including testing its gates, functionality of the environmental flow turbine, and other sensors and instruments.

The dam is the second phase of the Wawa Bulk Water Supply Project and will provide a year-long water supply of up to 710 million liters per day.

“The construction of the dam started in 2021 and was completed in record time taking into consideration its complexity, scale and magnitude,” WawaJVCo said.

The Upper Wawa Dam features a 450-hectare reservoir which is about twice the size of Bonifacio Global City and can store up to 120 million cubic meters of water, the company said.

Once commercially operating, the Upper Wawa Dam is expected to benefit over 700,000 households or 3.5 million Filipinos within the service area of the Metropolitan Waterworks & Sewerage System.

The dam is also designed with an ungated stepped spillway that helps regulate the release of water flow from the dam into the river, the company said.

The dam also has an environmental flow turbine that supplies continuous water to the downstream and also generates renewable power supply for consumption of the dam, lessening its dependency to source power from the grid, the company added.

WawaJVCo earlier said 518 million liters per day (MLD) of the dam’s capacity would be allocated to supply Manila Water Co. Inc. under a 30-year off-take agreement, boosting the East Zone concessionaire’s capacity by over 30 percent.

The remaining 192 MLD of excess raw water supply remains available for contract, it said.

The Wawa Bulk Water Supply Project in Rizal is one of the national government’s infrastructure flagship projects to address water security, specifically in the MWSS service area.

The project is the largest water supply dam to be constructed in over 50 years or since Angat Dam was built.

The Wawa Bulk Water Supply Project is being developed by WawaJVCo, a joint venture of Prime Infra and San Lorenzo Ruiz Builders and Developers Group Inc.

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