Kuwait’s Ministry of Water & Electricity (MEW) has prequalified two companies to bid to build a seawater desalination project at Al-Zour South.

Austria’s Wabag and UAE-based Metito Overseas have been prequalified to compete for a contract to supply, install, operate and maintain a reverse osmosis (RO) project at the site.The facility will have a capacity of 30 million gallons per day.

The tender was launched in June. Following a pre-tender meeting held on 3 August, the deadline for bids has been extended from 14 September to 19 September.

The site for the desalination project is near a 400MW power plant, which is set to be expanded to 800MW total capacity. The government will tender contracts for the power plant extension on an engineering procurement and construction (EPC) basis.

The existing power transmission network from the Al-Zour South area is currently limited, which could prove an issue for the power plant when it is expanded. But an offtake agreement with the desalination facility would reduce the necessary level of investment in transmission to distribute the power plant’s output.