China’s Machinery Engineering Corp and Saudi Arabia-based Dao al-Jomaih Group submitted the lowest bid to install four gas turbines in Iraq’s southern Basra province.

According to a report by Reuters, the China-US partnership tendered a bid of $204.4m.

Salam Qazaz, Iraq’s deputy electricity minister, is quoted saying that the units will have a total generating capacity of 500MW and will be installed at a power plant in Al-Najibiya, a district in Basra, Iraq’s southern oil hub.

The units are to be installed within 17 months, he added.

“Final approval of the deal will be decided after we study the technical aspects of the tender,” Qazaz told reporters in Basra.

Bids were also submitted by Swiss engineering group ABB, Turkey’s Enka Insaat  and South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Company.