South Korea’s Samsung C&T has been awarded a $1.8bn contract on Facility D independent power and water project (IWPP) in Qatar.

The contract covers engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a 2,500MW combined cycle power plant.

The total EPC works, which also include a 130 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) desalination plant, are worth $2.46bn.

The Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) awarded a Japanese consortium of Mitsubishi Corporation and Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) a contract to develop the IWPP in May 2015.

Local Umm Al Houl Power, the special project company (SPC) formed to develop Facility D, awarded the contract to Samsung.

Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWC) holds 60 per cent of shares in the SPC, with Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Foundation holding 5 per cent each. It is 30 per cent owned by K1 Energy, a joint venture established by Mitsubishi, as a majority shareholder, and Tepco.

Japan’s Hitachi Zosen will carry out the desalination EPC works, with Spanish Acciona Agua as a subcontractor.

About 70-90 MIGD of the desalination capacity will be from multi-stage flash (MSF)/multi-effect distillation (MED) technology, with the remaining 40-60 MIGD coming from reverse osmosis (RO) technology, which has to date only been implemented on a small scale in the country.

Facility D IWPP will be located in the Qatar Economic Zone (QEZ) near Mesaieed. It is due for completion in June 2018.

Facility D is estimated to require $3bn-worth of investment, with a large proportion of this to be project financed by banks. It is thought that Japan Bank for International Cooperation (Jbic), will have to play a role in raising the necessary funding, along with a consortium of Japanese and local banks.