Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) has extended the deadline for bids to build its planned power and water project at Ras al-Zour.

Contractors were originally to submit bids by 20 March but now have an additional month to respond to the tender. According to a source close to the tender, the extension was expected as the SWCC sent out bid clarifications later than expected.

The SWCC held a meeting with contractors to discuss its plans for the project in February (MEED 10:2:10).

SWCC has prequalified at least seven companies for the power portion of the project to date. The prequalifiers are:

• Alstom (France)
• Siemens (Germany)
• Arabian Bemco Contracting Company (local)
• Daelim Corporation (South Korea)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea)
• Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (South Korea)
• Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea)

At least four groups have also prequalified for the desalination portion of the scheme. They are:

• Doosan
• Sidem (France)
• Arabian Bemco/Fisia Italimpianti (Italy)
• Hitachi Zosen (Japan)

The combined-cycle power plant will have capacity of 2,400MW. The reverse osmosis/thermal hybrid desalination plant will have capacity of 226 million gallons a day (g/d) of water.

Saudi Electricity Company will take 1,050MW of the plant’s power output and SWCC will take 220 million g/d of desalinated water. Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) will take the remaining output from the plant.