According to IndustriAmbiente, the Metropolitan Council (Consell Metropolità) of the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area) has approved the ranking of bids in the tender to manage drinking water supply in eight municipalities, and the top-ranked bid is that of SGAB (Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona), part of the Veolia group. The ranking is the step prior to the award: once approved, the procedure moves on to the next stage.
The eight municipalities are Cervelló, Corbera de Llobregat, Molins de Rei, La Palma de Cervelló, Ripollet, Sant Andreu de la Barca, Sant Cugat del Vallès and Tiana. According to IndustriAmbiente, the service supplies a population of more than 230,000 people. The model is a 25-year service concession that brings together management of the eight municipalities, with its own investment plan and tariffs for each municipality.
IndustriAmbiente frames the tender as compliance with an October 2020 ruling of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). That ruling recognised the AMB’s competence to decide on the model and the means by which the service is managed.
According to the same outlet, six bids were assessed over nearly four months, and SGAB’s scored highest on both the technical and the formula-based criteria.
Sources: IndustriAmbiente, 2 October 2026. Image: the river Llobregat at Sant Joan Despí (Barcelona). Pere López Brosa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).
