The estimated $1,800 million-2,000 million project calls for the construction of a plant based on the installation of five steam turbines each with capacity of 500 MW. The schedule envisages final commissioning of the plant by 2010.

Ten companies applied for prequalification last December, with three - Sinohydro Corporationand Shanghai Electric Company, both of China, and the US' BE&K- failing to prequalify. The client, the Ministry of Energy (Electricity & Water), is expected to hand the tender documents to the Central Tenders Committee (CTC) by the end of December, with the CTC publishing the tender in the Official Gazette some time in January (MEED 17:12:04).

The project's desalination element, to be tendered separately, has also been delayed, and is now expected to be tendered next year. The plant will have desalination capacity of 75 million gallons a day (g/d). Of the total, 50 million g/d will be produced through multi-stage-flash (MSF) technology and 25 million g/d by reverse osmosis (RO).

Contractors expected to be invited to bid include Italy's Fisia Italimpianti, France's Sidem, Japan's Hitachi Zosen Corporation and Doosan (MEED 25:6:04).