Bahrain’s Works Ministry has received five bids for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Tubli sewage treatment plant (STP) expansion.

The ministry received proposals from five bidders on 18 August for the EPC deal. According to sources close to the project, the technical evaluation of submissions has started and commercial prices will be opened in 4-5 weeks.

The bidders were:

• Acciona Agua (Spain) / Mushrif Trading (Kuwait)
• Al-Ghanim International (Kuwait) / PWT Wasser (Germany) / Metito (UAE)
• Azmeel (Saudi Arabia) / Tecton ( UAE) / WTE (Germany)
• Combined Group Contracting Company (Kuwait) / Samsung Engineering (South Korea)
• Six Construct (Belgium) / Canar (local) / Wabag (local)

The project has faced a number of delays in the prequalification and bidding stages. MEED reported in May 2015 that 10 groups had been prequalified to participate in the tender. The authority had received prequalification documents from 25 groups in January 2014.

The scheme is being funded by the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, so prequalification was restricted to:

• Kuwaiti contractors
• Kuwaiti / Bahraini joint ventures
• Kuwaiti / foreign joint ventures or consortiums
• Saudi contractors
• Saudi / Bahraini joint ventures
• Saudi / foreign joint ventures or consortiums

The expansion will double the capacity of the plant from 200,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) to 400,000 cm/d. Tubli is currently dealing with more than 300,000 cm/d of wastewater, leading to raw sewage discharges into the sea.

The project is part of Bahrain’s efforts to expand and upgrade its wastewater treatment plants and networks, which are currently operating at over capacity.