Bahrain’s Tender Board has received six bids for the Muharraq wastewater treatment plant.

Interested parties had until 17 February to submit bids for the project, after the deadline was delayed from 20 January.

Submissions were received from France’s Degremont with Japan’s Sumitomo; Malaysia’s YTL Power International with the UK’s Wessex Water; Spain’s Acciona with Kuwait Finance House; Saudi Oger with Korea Water Resources Corporation; the German/UAE joint venture Metito Berlinwasser; and the UK’s United Utilities with Abu Dhabi Investment Company, Instrata Capital and Samsung Engineering of South Korea.

The successful developer will enter into a 27-year sewage treatment agreement with the ministry.

The project company, which will be wholly owned by the winning bidder, will build a 100,000-cubic-metre-a-day wastewater treatment plant on a build-own-operate basis, and a deep-gravity sewer network on a build-own-operate-transfer basis.

The Muharraq agreement is similar to previous Bahraini power deals and the Second Independent Sewerage Treatment Plant in Abu Dhabi.

The government is being advised by Germany’s Fichtner, UK bank HSBC and UK law firm Norton Rose on the tender.