Bahrain’s Electricity & Water Authority (EWA) has received a new round of bids for consultancy services for the Al-Dur 2 independent water and power project (IWPP).

The accepted bids are from the UK’s HSBC, EY and PwC, France’s BNP Paribas, the local Gulf International Bank and Dutch KPMG Fakhro.

The contract was retendered after EWA received just one proposal, from HSBC, in March. EWA broadened the participation from banks to consultants.

The Al-Dur 2 IWPP is expected to include a 1,500MW gas-fired power generation facility, and is scheduled to come online by 2019.

Peak demand growth for electricity rebounded to reach 8.1 per cent in 2014, after having slowed significantly between 2011 and 2013 following the political unrest. EWA predicts peak consumption will increase by an annual average of 6.4 per cent until 2020.

As a result, close to $1.5bn and $1bn are planned to be invested on power generation facilities and transmission projects respectively in the next four to five years.

Bahrain’s last IWPP, the $2.2bn Al-Dur 1 plant, is also due to be refinanced in 2016.

Its developers, UK/French Engie and Kuwait-headquartered Gulf Investment Corporation could only secure an eight-year hard mini-perm in 2009, immediately following the global financial crisis. They will be in default unless they manage to refinance the $1.6bn project finance deal by early 2017.

Under the balloon structure, about 80 per cent of the debt is thought to be outstanding.

France’s Calyon, the UAE’s Mashreq bank and the UK’s Standard Chartered were the original mandated lead arrangers. An additional 20 banks and five minority equity investors financed the scheme.