Egypt’s Electricity & Energy Ministry has received 19 responses to its request for qualification to build an independent power project (IPP) at Dairut in the Asyut governorate.

The deadline for submissions was 30 April following an extension from the original 31 March deadline (MEED 7:4:10).

The following companies and groups responded to the request:

• AES Corporation (US)
• Power Engineers Contracting (US), Engineering Kinetics (Pakistan), Evonik Energy Services (Germany) and Indeco (UK)
• Powertek (Malaysia)
• Tenaga Nasional (Malaysia)
• American China Egypt Power Group
• Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)
• EDF International (France)
• International Power (UK) and Benchmark Power International (local)
• GMR (India) and El-Sewedy Dairut Power (local)
• Marubeni Corporation (Japan)
• Sumitomo Corporation (Japan)
• Kepco (South Korea)
• Mitsui (Japan)
• Cobra (Spain) and AAW (local)
• Enka (Turkey)
• SNC-Lavalin (Canada)
• General Electric (US)
• Siemens Project Venture (Germany)
• GDF Suez (France), OCI (local) and Sojitz (Japan)

A request for proposals to build the project is expected to be issued in June with a deadline for bids of September. An award is to be made by November.

The combined-cycle power plant will be developed at Dairut on a build-own-operate basis. The plant is likely to have capacity of 1,500MW, consisting of two 750MW units.

However, developers can propose a different configuration using three 750MW units, which would take capacity of the project to 2,250MW.

The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company will buy the output of the plant for 20 years under a power-purchase agreement.