The contract could be worth as much as $78m, according to a source close to the project. The expanded facilities will serve the desalination plant. The deadline for bids is 5 May.

Interested companies include Kuwait’s United Gulf Construction Company; Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC); Egypt’s Societe Egyptienne d’Entreprises; India’s Nagarjuna Construction Company; and local companies Galfar Engineering & Contracting, Al-Mater Trading & Contracting, Erko Oman, and Towell Al-Zawraa Engineering Services Company.

The UK’s Mott MacDonald is the consultant and Oman’s Public Authority for Electricity & Water is the client.