Kuwait’s Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB) has pushed back the bid deadline deadline for a contract to build the first phase of its long-delayed Al-Zour North power and water project.

Interested parties have until 4 July to respond to the tender instead of an earlier 30 May deadline. The cut-off date was pushed back for undisclosed reasons.

The winning bidder will design, build, operate and maintain the first of four phases of the Al-Zour North project.

The Kuwaiti cabinet approved the construction of the power and water plant at the Al-Zour site in September 2009. It will have capacity of 1,500MW of power and 102 million gallons a day (g/d) of desalinated water. 

If the tender goes ahead according to the current schedule, the plant will start operating in April 2012. It will begin operating commercially in April 2013.

In total, the four phases of the project will add 4,800MW of power and 280 million g/d of desalination capacity.

The ministry has tendered a project at Al-Zour North before, but this was later cancelled because of limited interest from bidders.

The client prequalified seven companies to bid for the scheme in December 2005 but just one bid was submitted for the 2,500MW steam plant by the deadline the following year. The bidding group was made up of the US’ Washington Group International, South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Company and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company.