Work will start at five mega reservoirs at the end of March 2015, according to a spokesperson for Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa).

Engineering, procurement and construction contracts for the mega-reservoirs, awarded earlier in March, are worth roughly QR2.3bn ($879m) each.

The work involves the construction of five 100 million imperial gallon (MIG) reservoirs at four of the sites, and four reservoirs at the remaining site. They will each cover an area of 300 by 150 metres.

The contractors are:

•     Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC; Athens-based)/Teyseer (local) – packages A and C
•     Habtoor Leighton Group (UAE/Australia) – package D
•     HBK Contracting (local) – package B
•     China Gezhouba/Burhan International Contracting (Kuwait) – package E

Kahramaa will do operations and management in house, but tender a Scada control system contract.

The first phase will cost $17bn.

The next part of the water storage programme will be the secondary reservoirs and associated pipelines.

Kahramaa is still in the design phase and intends to issue tenders in late 2015 and 2016.

The reservoirs at three sites, Mukaynis, Zekrit and Hazm Abal Jih, will have a total capacity of 18 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD).

The replacement of the Old Doha reservoirs is expected to involve 18 reservoirs with a total capacity of 160MIG. This may change depending on demand projections.

Phase two of the mega reservoir project is in the design stage. It is expected to be tendered in 2026 and completed in 2029, in line with Qatar’s 2030 National Vision.

The work will involve increasing the number of 100MIG reservoirs at each site to between seven and nine, to reach forty in total.

The programme is intended to provide 3,800MIG of storage, or seven days of water supply for the country.