The Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) is currently conducting tender clarification meetings with three remaining bidders for Qatar’s next independent water and power project (IWPP), known as Facility D.

Kahramaa received bids from four consortiums on 29 May for the IWPP, but MEED understands the utility has shortened the list to three after the lowest bidder’s submission was deemed non-compliant.

According to sources close to the project, the consortium led by Japan’s Sumitomo was originally the low bidder for the project, but, after some issues over the technical components of its bid, is now out of the running.

Out of the three remaining bidders, the consortium led by Japan’s Mitsubishi consortium is the lowest bidder and is expected to win the contract, with its bid thought to be quite significantly lower than that of the second ranked bidder, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation.

The UK/French GDF Suez Energy International submitted the highest price.

The proposed IWPP is planned to be located in the Qatar Economic Zone (QEZ) near Mesaieed and will have a capacity of 2,280-2,520MW and 123.5-136.5 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) of water. Some 70-90 MIGD of the desalination capacity will be from multi-stage flash (MSF)/multi-effect distillation (MED) technology, with the remaining 40-60 million g/d from reverse osmosis (RO) technology, which has to date only been implemented on a small scale in Qatar.

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.

Despite having recorded some of the highest demand growth for power and desalination in the Gulf in recent years, Qatar has been able to build up one of the highest reserve margins in the region. However, with consumption expected to continue to rise steeply as the state pushes ahead with its construction programme for hosting the 2022 Fifa World Cup, Kahramaa is aware that new capacity is vital.

“We expect to see demand continuing to increase by 10 per cent annually for the next five years,” Ahmed al-Nasser, technical director at Kahramaa, told MEED in late 2013. “This is why we are planning to increase capacity by 2,000MW in this time, as well as increase desalination capacity.”