They include Spain’s Acciona Agua with Kuwait Finance House; Germany’s Berlinwasser International and UAE-based Metito Utilities; the UK’s Biwater Construction; France’s Degremont; and Singapore’s Keppel Seghers Engineering.

Another group includes Spain’s Aqualia with the US’ Four Winds Capital Management, Spain’s Grupo Fomento De Construcciones y Contratas, Saudi Arabia’s Nesma & Partners and the local Zero Waste Bluewater Bio.

Other prequalifiers included Dubai-based Palm Water and Belgium’s Waterleau; Saudi Binladin Group, Fujairah-based Tanqia and Germany’s Passavant Roediger; Saudi Oger with Korea Water Resources Corporation and South Korea’s Samsung C&T Corporation; Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries; and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation.

A team of the UK’s United Utilities, South Korea’s Samsung Engineering Company, Abu Dhabi Investment Company, and the local Instrata Capital was also prequalified.

France’s Veolia Water; Malaysia’s YTL Power International and the UK’s Wessex Water; and Kuwait's Kharafi National with Severn Trent International complete the shortlist of firms.

The ministry is expected to issue a request for proposals in February.

The successful bidder will develop the plant on a build-own-operate basis. It will initially have capacity of 90-100,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d). This will be expanded to 160,000cm/d within five years (MEED 15:01:09).