Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has awarded two further pipeline contracts on its Water Security Mega Reservoirs project.

The client awarded one contract to a joint venture of CAT International Qatar, part of Lebanese Contracting and Trading, and the local firm Boom Construction to supply, install and commission transmission mains around the capital Doha. The pipelines, which will facilitate the project, will have diameters of 900-1,600 millimetres.

A second contract has been awarded to the Chinese state-owned Sinohydro group for pipelines to connect the new desalination plant in the Qatar Economic Zone with the mega reservoirs. The work wil involve the design, provision and construction of 90 kilometres of water transmission pipelines and associated fibre optic cables to link the new desalination plant – the planned Facility D independent water and power project (IWPP) – to Doha’s water network.

Four bidders submitted prices in May for the Facility D IWPP, which will have a desalination capacity of about 130 million gallons a day (g/d). The IWPP is estimated to require $3bn-worth of investment, with a large proportion of this to be project financed by banks. It is thought that government-backed export credit agencies (ECAs) such as Japan Bank for International Cooperation (Jbic) will have to play a role in raising the necessary financing.

The Water Security Mega Reservoirs project, set for completion in 2019, will have a capacity of 15 million cubic metres and has been designed to provide seven days of strategic water storage within its network.