Eight groups of local and regional contractors submitted bids on 12 December to the Water & Electricity Ministry for a design and build contract covering the construction of a sewage treatment plant at Haer, south of Riyadh. The local Aziz Company has submitted a low bid of SR 293.6 million ($78 million), about 12 per cent lower than the next quote of SR 328.8 million ($88 million) offered by Civil Engineering Works Company, also local.The facility will have a design capacity of 400,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d), with plans to increase it to 640,000 cm/d at a later stage. The project will take 18 months to complete (MEED 14:10:05).