Alstom submitted the lowest offer for the open cycle plant, beating off stiff competition from General Electric (GE)of the US and Germany's Siemens. All three companies submitted a euro and local currency component in their offers. Alstom included a Swiss Franc-denominated tranche, and GE submitted a US dollar-denominated component.

Alstom has until October 2004 to complete work on the plant at Ain Beida in Oum el-Bouaghi province. The construction timetable is particularly tight in order to counter the rapidly increasing demand deficit in the power sector. Annual domestic production capacity is 6,000 MW and a further 1,044 MW is scheduled to come on stream in 2005 with the completion of plants at Arzew and Skikda. However, the country is still expected to have a shortfall of 400 MW once these plants are operational.

In early June, Canada's SNC Lavalinwas awarded the EPC contract for the plant at Skikda. Alstom is one of the companies bidding for the equipment supply contract for the 314-MW plant (MEED 13:6:03).