Kuwait’s Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB) is expected to make progress with the tenders for the Al-Zour North 2 independent water and power project (IWPP) and the Al-Khiran IWPP in early 2015.

Al-Zour North 2 will have a capacity of 1,500MW and 102 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) of water. The PTB invited expressions of interest (EoIs) in mid-2013, but did not issue prequalification documents as expected in early 2014.

The Al-Khiran IWPP will have a capacity of 1,500MW and 125 MIGD. The PTB received EoIs in March, but is still preparing its request for prequalification (RFP).

The project delays are due to a new public private partnerships (PPP) law approved by the National Assembly in 2014, intended to facilitate the tendering process and iron out technical problems. However, the executive implementing regulations for the new law have yet to be issued by the PTB technical committee.

This has affected several of the PTB’s schemes in the initial stages, as Kuwait tries to upgrade its ageing power infrastructure to meet rising demand.