Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee (CTC) has received bids for two contracts to build a number of electrical substations in the Jaber al-Ahmad area.

For the first contract, the CTC received bids from five companies for the contract to build seven substations at Jaber al-Ahmad, including the Y5, Y6, Y7, Y8, Y9, Y10, Y11 substations. Saudi Arabia’s National Contracting Company (NCC) submitted the lowest price of KD23.1m ($81.2m). This was marginally lower than the KD23.14m bid submitted by the local Al-Ahlia. The local office of India’s Larsen & Toubro submitted the third lowest price of KD24.3m.

The local firms Kharafi National and the Asil House Group for General Trading and Contracting submitted prices of KD24.9m and KD34.5m respectively.

Four companies submitted prices for the second contract, which also involves building seven substations. These are the 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, 6X and 7X substations. The local office of India’s Larsen & Toubro submitted the low bid of KD22.9m, which was 1.3 per cent lower than the KD23.2m price submitted by the local Al-Ahlia. Kharafi National and Switzerland’s ABB completed the bidding with prices of KD23.8m and KD30m respectively.

The electricity project is the latest of several schemes the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) has tendered in recent months, as it seeks to expand and upgrade Kuwait’s transmission and distribution networks.

In May, the CTC approved the award of two contracts worth a total of KD45.9m to the local branch of Switzerland’s ABB to build new and expand existing electrical substations at various locations in Kuwait City.

The first contract will involve building the Raudhatain W 300kV substation, in the Raudhatain area of Kuwait City, and expanding two 132kV substations at Kaifan. The second contract is to build the Raudhatain X 300kV substation and expand two 132kV substations in Salmiya.