The Oman Power & Water Procurement Company (OPWP) has extended the bid submission date for the contracts to develop the Sohar and Barka independent water projects (IWPs) in Oman.

The utility has extended the submission date from 3 August to 17 August.

OPWP is expected to select two developers, one for each project, due to the size of the proposed plants. MEED recently reported that eight international consortiums have been prequalified for the tender.

The Barka IWP will have a capacity of 280,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d), while the Sohar IWP will have a capacity of 250,000 cm/d. Both plants will use reverse osmosis (RO) technology.

Five of the groups have been prequalified unconditionally, and three have been prequalified with conditions.

The five unconditionally prequalified consortiums are led by:

• Abengoa (Spain) / National Power & Water Company (local)
• GDF Suez (now called Engie) (France/UK)
• Hyflux (Singapore)
• Valoriza (Spain)
• Veolia (France) / Marubeni (Japan)

The three conditionally qualified consortiums are:

• GS Inima (Spain) / GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Acciona Agua (Spain)
• Itochu (Japan) / Degremont (France)
• JGC (Japan)