The Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects (KAPP) is preparing to issue tenders to prequalified consortiums for the planned Al-Khiran 1 independent water and power project (IWPP) in the first quarter of 2016.

Speaking at MEED’s Kuwait Projects 2015 conference held in late November, Abdulaziz al-Hedaib, project manager at KAPP, said the public-private partnership (PPP) body was planning to issue request for proposals (RFPs) for the project before the end of March.

KAPP has already issued RFPs for the Al-Zour North 2 IWPP, its second IWPP project following the Al-Zour North 1 IWPP, which is under construction and set for commercial operation in November 2016. The PPP body has set a submission date of 17 January 2016 for firms to submit bids for the contract to develop Al-Zour North 2.

The seven groups prequalified to participate in the Al-Khiran project are led by the following developers:

• Abengoa (Spain)
• Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)
• Korea Electric Power Company (South Korea)
• Marubeni (Japan)
• Mitsubishi (Japan)
• Mitsui (Japan)
• Sumitomo (Japan) / Osaka Gas Company (Japan) / National Industries Holding Consortium (local)

The Al-Khiran 1 IWPP will have a generation capacity of 1,500MW, the same as Al-Zour North 1 and Al-Zour North 2, but will have a larger desalination component of 125 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD).

Al-Khiran 1 will run on low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO), unlike the Al-Zour North 1 and 2 projects, which will run on gas.

The Al-Khiran 1 IWPP will have the capability to run on the back-up fuels of natural gas, crude oil and gas oil.