Oman’s Public Authority for Electricity & Water has awarded a consultancy contract for its first solar power plant to an Australian/US consortium.

The authority selected a bid submitted by Australian contractor WorleyParsons, Australian bank Macquarie and US law firm Chadbourne & Parke for the project.

Oman will develop the solar plant as an independent power project (IPP).

WorleyParsons was the low bidder, submitting a price of RO861,540 ($2.2m) for the work (MEED 26:5:09).

Eight other companies also bid for the deal.

The UK’s PricewaterhouseCoopers priced the contract at RO996,000, Lebanon’s Dar al-Handasah (Shair & Partners) bid RO1.08m and the UK’s Ernst & Young submitted an offer of RO1.15m.

KPMG of the UK bid RO1.31m, followed by Germany’s Fichtner at RO1.47m and Finland-based Poyry Energy with RO1.82m.

The local Advance Mechanical Engineering Consultancies bid RO1.84m and Spain’s Trama Tecnoambiental was the highest bidder at RO2.9m.