Oman’s Public Authority for Electricity & Water (PAEW) has received bids to build a desalination plant at Al-Awaifiya in the wilayat of Bahla.

Five companies (all local) submitted bids with prices as follows:

• Galfar Engineering & Contracting – RO1.44m ($3.74m)
• Al-Ansari Trading Enterprise – RO1.09m
• Oman National Engineering and Investment Company – RO1.05m
• Global Chemicals & Maintenance System  – RO1.20m and alternative bids of RO1.17m
• National United Engineering Construction Company  – RO1.74m

The winning bidder will construct, operate and maintain the project, which will have a capacity of 200 cubic metres-a-day (cm/d).

This is the second time that PAEW has tendered the contract to build the project. Egypt’s International Desalination & Water Treatment offered the lowest bid to build the project in July 2009. The company submitted three prices ranging from RO648,000 to RO728,000.

International Desalination & Water Treatment bought tender documents for the latest tender, but did not bid for the contract.

Oman National Engineering & Investment Company (ONEIC) bid RO878,133 in the first tender. The local Al-Rafaa Trading & Contracting submitted two prices, RO995,575 and RO1.01m.