Oman Power & Water Procurement Company (OPWP) is preparing request for qualification (RFQ) documents for two major independent water projects (IWPs).

OPWP is finalising the RFQ documents for the planned Salalah and Sharqiyah IWPs, which will have capacities of about 22 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) and 17.6MIGD respectively. The company is expecting to issue the RFQs in the next few weeks.

The utility is targeting a commissioning date of early 2019 for the Salalah IWP and the second quarter of 2020 for the Sharqiyah IWP. However, early water from the Sharqiyah plant may be required by the second quarter of 2019.

In addition to the Salalah and Sharqiyah schemes, OPWP may also press ahead with a 13.2MIGD IWP in Duqm, depending on government approvals.

MEED recently reported that OPWP had invited companies to submit bids for the contract to carry out site studies for the planned Sharqiyah and Salalah IWPs.

The projects are part of the sultanate’s plans to build additional desalination capacity to meet forecast demand, which is expected to rise by more than 6 per cent a year until 2020, according to OPWP.

MEED reported in August that the utility had received bids from seven groups for the deal to develop the Sohar/Barka IWPs.

The groups that submitted bids, with lead developer first, are:

• Abengoa (Spain) / National Power & Water Company (local) / Muscat Overseas (local)
• GS Inima (Spain) / GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Acciona Agua (Spain) / Oman Investment Corporation (local)
• Hyflux (Singapore)
•  Itochu (Japan) / Degremont(France) / WJ Towell (UK)
• JGC Corporation (Japan) / Sojitz(Japan)
• Valoriza (Spain) / Oman Brunei Investment Company (local) / Sogex (local)
• Veolia (France) / Marubeni (Japan) / Nippon Koei (Japan)

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.

OPWP expects to select two different developers for the projects due to their size. The sites were selected due to their proximity to existing infrastructure.

Earlier in 2015, the utility signed a water purchase agreement with Singapore’s Hyflux to develop a 200,000-cm/d IWP at Qurayyat.