Oman’s Public Authority for Electricity and Water (PAEW) is still considering bids for the contract to build a water treatment plant at the Wadi Dayqah dam, located at Qurayyat in the Muscat governorate.

The PAEW received bids from nine contractors in May. The bidders have not been told when the client will make an award.

The storage capacity of the Wadi Dayqah dam is about 100 million cubic metres, which supplies 35 million cubic metres of water per year. The storage lake covers 350 hectares and extends 6km upstream from the main body of the dam.

The project is part of the sultanate’s efforts to expand its water infrastructure to cope with increasing demand.

The Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) recently invited firms to submit expressions of interest (EOI) for the contract to develop its next independent water project (IWP), which will also be located at Qurayyat. The IWP will have a capacity of up to 46 million gallons a day, or 207,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d), and will be located just south of the capital city of Muscat.

Demand for water in the sultanate increased at a faster rate than anticipated in 2012, prompting the Public Authority of Electricity & Water (PAEW) to revise the capacity building plans for water projects. Water demand in the northern region, which includes the Main Interconnected System (MIS), Sur Zone and Duqm zone, is expected to increase by 6 per cent a year, from 597,430 cm/d in 2012 to 866,00 cm/d in 2019. In the southern Salalah region, water demand is also expected to grow at a rate of 6 per cent, from 61,000 cm/d in 2012 to 88,000 cm/d in 2019.