Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has approved the award of a KD62m ($220m) contract to the local Alghanim International for a maintenance contract at the Al-Zour South power station.

Alghanim will provide maintenance works for new gas turbines for the Al-Zour South station for electric power generation and water distillation. The client for the project is the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW).

The CTC approved the award of the contract on 22 October.

The Al-Zour South project is currently being upgraded. France’s Alstom and Alghanim are converting the existing simple cycle gas-fired project into a combined-cycle plant on a design, build and operate basis. The conversion will add a 400MW steam turbine to the existing 800MW plant. Alstom and Alghanim built the original power plant.

The MEW is also planning to expand the capacity of the power plant. In August, contractors were invited to submit bids for the contract to build two 225MW power generating units at the power plant. Contractors will have 18 months to complete the project from the date of signing.

The project will be built on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis. According to Kuwaiti law, projects more than 500MW must be tendered as independent power projects (IPPs).