Only one other group - a joint venture of Italy's Salini Costruttoriand Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC)- priced the civil works package, which is being financed by the Saudi Development Fund, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Abu Dhabi Development Fund and the Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development.

With the award of the civils package, attention is turning to the mechanical and electrical and power transmission line package, for which bids are due to be submitted on 30 June.

Prospective bidders for the estimated $600 million contract include Austria's VA Tech Hydro, France's Alstom, Germany's Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generationand several Chinese companies. The ministry has already received funding commitments from four Arab agencies for most of the contract value.

The dam, due to be completed in 2008, will house 10 125-MW hydroelectric turbines and produce enough power to meet rising demand around Khartoum. Sudan, under the terms of an agreement signed with Egypt in 1959, is entitled to utilise 18,500 million cubic metres a year from the Nile.

The engineering consultant on the Merowe dam project is Germany's Lahmeyer International.