Oman’s Public Authority for Electricity & Water (PAEW) has extended the bid deadline for the contract to expand and upgrade water distribution networks in the Bausher area of Muscat.

Contractors now have until 18 of September to submit bids for the deal. The deadline has now been extended a number of times, with bids originally due in May. The contract is the first package tendered for the project.

Earlier in 2014, PAEW announced it is planning to spend about RO580m ($1.5bn) on new water supply schemes over the next five years, until 2019. The majority of the projects will transport water from existing and planned new desalination plants to urban and outlying rural areas.

One of the major planned transmission schemes will link the proposed Qurayyat independent water project (IWP) to the water grid. Oman Power & Water Procurement Company (OPWP) received prequalification entries from 12 developers in October 2013 for the deal to develop the IWP, which will be located just south of Muscat.

The IWP will have a capacity of up to 46 million gallons a day (g/d), or 207,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d), of water.