Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW) has extended the bid submission date for the contract to build a new 50 million-imperial-gallon-a-day (MIGD) reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant in the Doha area of the country.

Prequalified contractors now have until 9 June to submit bids for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) deal. The MEW has prequalified nine groups for the tender, having received 26 prequalification entries in March 2014.

This is the second time the deadline has been extended. The previous submission date was 10 May. The deadline has been extended to allow contractors more time to work on bids, according to sources close to the project.

The prequalified groups are:

• Abeinsa Infraestructuras Medio Ambiente (Spain) / Gharnatah International General Trading & Contracting (local)
• Acciona Agua (Spain) / Hitachi Zosen Corporation (Japan) / Al-Maseelah Trading Company (local)
• Cadagua (Spain) / Mohammed Abdulmohsin al-Kharafi & Sons (local)
• Degremont (France) / Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Rank General Trading & Contracting (local)
• Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (South Korea) / Al-Omar Trading & Contracting (local)
• GS Inima Environment (Spain) / KCC Engineering & Contracting (local) / Saud Abdulaziz al-Rashed & Brothers (local)
• Hyflux (Singapore) / Thuwainy Trading Company (local)
• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan) / Toyo Engineering Corporation (Japan) / Kharafi National (local)
• OTV (France) / Alghanim International General Trading & Contracting (local)

A second 50-MIGD phase of the Doha project is also planned.

The scheme is part of Kuwait’s efforts to expand its desalination capacity to cope with increasing demand from rapid population growth. The ministry forecasts that an additional 270 MIGD of desalination capacity is required to meet the estimated demand by 2020.