Oman Power & Water Company (OPWP) has extended the deadline for the submission of statement of qualifications from developers for an independent water project (IWP) at Al-Ghubrah.

Responses are now due in by 28 November instead of 14 November. The deadline was recently moved from 7 November (MEED 10:11:11).

The desalination project will have a capacity of 42 million gallons a day of water. The reverse-osmosis plant will help the sultanate to meet growing water demand requirements in the Muscat region.

The request for qualification was issued in September. According to OPWP’s schedule, bids are to be due by March 2012, with an award made in May 2012. Full commissioning is planned for April 2014 (MEED 12:9:11). The latest round of tender deadline extensions is likely to put pressure on the construction timetable.

OPWP is advised by the UK’s KPMG and SNR Denton and Germany’s Fichtner on the project.

The project was originally to be developed as an independent water and power project (IWPP). However, the power component of the project was dropped in June 2010 due to environmental concerns associated with the site.