Developers were requested to give details of their prospective consortium partners in the late March prequalification applications. While several provided comprehensive information on issues such as prospective engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors, others just indicated their willingness to bid. Companies understood to have submitted by the deadline include: the UK's International Power, with Japan's Mitsui & Companyand Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco); Belgium's Tractebelwith Italy's Enelpower; France's TotalFinaElf; Germany's RWE; the US' AES Corporation; Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco); Electricite de France; Germany's STEAG; and Japan's Marubeni Corporation.

Over 20 developers and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors responded by 18 January to the Umm al-Nar solicitation of interest (MEED 15:3:02).

Developers will bid the project on the basis of taking a 40 per cent stake in a new project company, which will purchase 70 million gallons a day (g/d) of recently built desalination capacity at Umm al-Nar. It will also be responsible for installing up to 1,500 MW of generation capacity, which will allow existing capacity to be decommissioned in phases, and possibly, some 25 million g/d of new desalination capacity.

Umm al-Nar will be Abu Dhabi's fourth IWPP. ADWEA is being advised on the project by Credit Suisse First Boston, Germany's Fichtnerand the US' White & Case(MEED 21:9:01). ADWEA is also considering the emirate's first independent water project (IWP), a 50 million-g/d reverse osmosis (RO) plant at Taweelah (MEED 22:3:02).