Kuwait’s Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB) has asked developers to qualify to bid on the country’s first independent water and power project (IWPP).

Prequalification documents for the project were made available from 27 June and developers have been asked to respond by 26 August. PTB launched preliminary discussions with developers in May in a market sounding.

The winning bidder will design, finance, build, operate and maintain the gas-fired power and water facility at a site in Al-Zour North.

The plant will have a capacity of 1,500MW of power and 100 million gallons a day of desalinated water. It will be the first of its kind in Kuwait.

A team of France’s BNP Paribas, US law firm Chadbourne & Parke and Germany’s Lahmeyer International won the mandate to advise PTB on the project in March.

Power and water from the project will be sold to the Electricity & Water Ministry under a 30-year offtake agreement.

In accordance with Kuwait’s public-private partnership (PPP) laws the project will be undertaken by a public joint stock company of which 40 per cent will be offered to the successful developer following a competitive tendering process.

The Al-Zour North site was selected following an analysis of three sites at Al-Zour, on the east coast of the country. The site was selected as permission has already been granted for another power and water project at Al-Zour North, along with advantages such as water access, which could be expected to speed up the early stages of the project.

The government of Kuwait has indicated its preference for building out the country’s upcoming power and water plant pipeline on an IWPP basis, as opposed to engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis.