Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has approved the award of a KD17.5m ($62m) contract to Saudi Arabia’s National Contracting Company (NCC) to build the Z1 400kV substation at Sabah al-Ahmad in Kuwait.

The Electricity & Water Ministry had received bids from contractors on 18 December. NCC’s price of KD17.5m ($62m) was 10 per cent lower than the KD19.5m submitted by Switzerland’s ABB, the second lowest bidder.

The contract is the second substation contract that NCC has won at Sabah al-Ahmad. In August 2012, the ministry awarded the Saudi contractor a $68m contract to build the Z4 400kV substation at Sabah al-Ahmed.

The Sabah al-Ahmad development is being developed by Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW).  Located 50 kilometres south Kuwait City, the development will comprise of 9,000 housing units for Kuwaiti citizens. It will include commercial, health, sports, educational and other private residential areas. The local Al-Dowailah Engineering is the design consultant.

The Sabah al-Ahmad is one of four major township developments being developed by PAHW in Kuwait. The others – Jaber al-Ahmad, Saad al-Abdullah, Mutlah and Khiran – will add more than 50,000 new residential units to the country’s total supply. The housing developments have been planned to cope with the country’s rapidly growing population, which is expected to grow to 5.3 million by 2020 from 3.2 million in 2012.