Bahrain’s Electricity & Water Authority (EWA) has appointed the Netherland’s KPMG Fakhro as financial advisor for its Al-Durr 2 independent power & water project (IWPP).

KPMG was the low bidder out of three bids opened on 10 November, at BD616,375 ($1.6m).

The other bidders were the UK’s HSBC and PwC. The contract was retendered earlier in 2016 after HSBC was the sole bidder.

EWA is also thought to have selected legal and technical advisors as part of a consortium with KPMG.

The Al-Dur 2 IWPP is expected to include a 1,500MW gas-fired power generation facility.

EWA is expecting consumption to continue to rise by an average of up to 6.4 per cent until 2020.

The developers of the previous al-Durr 1 IWPP, led by France’s Engie, are still in discussions with banks over refinancing the $2.2bn project. A $1.6bn eight year hard mini-perm matures in 2017, but may be extended.

The $2.2bn IWPP has a capacity of 1234MW and 181,700 cubic metres a day of water. It was fully commissioned in 2012, and has a 20 year power and water purchase agreement.