Oman Power & Water Procurement Company (OPWP) has received bids from six consortiums for the contract to develop the Qurayyat independent water project (IWP).

OPWP had prequalified seven consortiums for the tender, with only the consortium led by Spain’s GS Inima deciding to not submit a bid.

The groups that submitted bids are led by:

• Abengoa (Spain)
• Cobra Instalaciones Y Servicios (Spain)/Tedagua (Spain)
• Hyflux (Singapore)/Bahwan Group (local)
• Itochu (Japan)/Suez Degremont (France)/Muscat Overseas (local)/Douglas OHI (local)
• Sumitomo Corporation (Japan)/Malakoff (Malaysia)/Doosan (South Korea)
• Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)/Valoriza (Spain)

The planned 44 million gallon-a-day (g/d), 200,000 cubic metre-a-day (cm/d) desalination plant will be located in Qurayyat, just south of Muscat. Under the terms of the proposed project, OPWP will purchase the potable water produced by the plant under a water purchase agreement (WPA) for a period of 20 years.

OPWP is aiming to select a bidder and sign all of the project agreements by the end of 2014, and has set a start date of March 2017 for commercial operation.

OPWP is planning to tender contracts for five IWPs in 2014. In its latest 7-year statement, covering the years 2014 to 2020, the firm has set out plans to issue the tenders before the end of 2014, which will add a total capacity of 116 million g/d to the sultanate’s desalination sector when fully commissioned.

The majority of the new capacity will be provided through three new schemes located in the Muscat Interconnected System (MIS), the sultanate’s main grid, and will boost capacity by 107 million g/d.

Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) recently agreed to provide $176m of financing for a water supply project in Oman, as part of Muscat’s efforts to improve and expand the sultanate’s water supply and networks.

The financing will be used for the Wadi Dayqah water supply scheme, which is planned to distribute water from the Wadi Dayqah dam. Construction of the dam was completed in 2012.

The dam has a maximum storage of about 100 million cubic metres, with the expected yield planned to be about 35 million cubic metres. About 15 million cubic metres will be used for domestic and irrigation water supplies and the remaining 20 million cubic metres will be allocated to potable water supply in the area.