'There has been no clear word yet, but we are expecting a beauty contest to be staged towards the end of May and maybe for someone to be mandated in June,' says one of the bidders.

The list of 10 bidders is a combination of the usual suspects and some less familiar names. ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Credit Agricole Indosuez, Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotlandand Societe Generalehave been joined by less frequent bidders for regional advisory work, Italy's Banca Intesaand ING Bank of the Netherlands.

There is considerable speculation over the status of CSFB's bid. The US house has a proven track record in Abu Dhabi - it has acted as financial adviser on three of the city's four IWPPs - but it did part company with its advisory mandate on the Dolphin project last year (MEED 24:5:02).

'We have been definitively told that CSFB will not win this mandate,' says one of the bidders.

There also continues to be debate over whether the Mirfa project will, in fact, be pursued on an IWPP basis, though the decision to seek a financial adviser suggests this has become more likely. Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA) is also in the process of selecting a legal consultant.

The schedule laid out by ADWEA originally envisaged request for proposal (RFP) documents being issued to potential developers by 31 July, bids being received by January 2004 and financial close in December 2004 (MEED 25:4:03). The early part of the schedule is likely to be pushed back by a few weeks by the delays in appointing a financial adviser.

The scope of the Mirfa project has been scaled back from the original plans. The current proposal sees the installation of 600-700 MW of new generating capacity and 22.5 million gallons a day (g/d) of new desalination capacity. The Mirfa complex already has 192 MW and 16.2 million g/d of installed capacity.

Germany's Fichtner has been appointed technical consultant on the project (MEED 21:3:03, Power & Water).