The UAE’s Federal Electricity & Water Authority (Fewa) has selected Spain’s Cadagua to build a 10 million-gallon-a-day (g/d) reverse osmosis desalination plant in the emirate of Ajman.

Fewa has sent a letter of intent to Cadagua and its partner, Ajman-based Essa Engineering, to build the project at a site at Al-Zawra.

The following companies submitted bids for for the contract:

• Aquatech (US) – AED189.0m ($51.5m)
• Cadagua (Spain), Essa Engineering (local) – AED189.2m
• Al-Habtoor Engineering Enterprises (local), Doosan (South Korea) – AED220.2m
• Veolia (France) – AED229.9m
• Aqua Engineering (Austria) – AED238.4m
• Acwa Emirates (UK) – AED246.0m
• Larsen & Toubro (India) – AED280.2m

Essa Engineering will provide water tanks, transmission pipelines and a pumping station.

The new reverse osmosis plant will stand next to two other desalination plants at Al-Zawra. Austria’s Aqua Engineering won the contract to build a 7 million g/d desalination plant at the site in September 2009. Aqua Engineering would also relocate an existing 3 million g/d plant from Al-Qidhfa in Fujairah to Al-Zawra (MEED 7:9:09).