Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) has held a meeting with contractors to discuss its planned power and water project at Ras al-Zour.

The meeting was held on 6 February and according to contractors was well attended, with more than 100 people present.

The deadline for bids is 20 March although a source close to the project says SWCC may postpone this to give contractors more time to prepare bids.

The prequalification process is continuing and the client has not set a cut-off date for the submission of prequalification documents.

SWCC has prequalified at least seven companies for the power portion of the project to date. They are France’s Alstom, Germany’s Siemens, the local Arabian Bemco Contracting Company, and South Korean firms Daelim, Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction and Hyundai Engineering & Construction.

At least four groups have also prequalified for the desalination portion of the scheme. They are Doosan, France’s Sidem, Arabian Bemco with Italy’s Fisia Italimpianti, and Japan’s Hitachi Zosen.

The combined-cycle power plant will have capacity of 2,400MW. The reverse osmosis/thermal hybrid desalination plant will have capacity of 226 million gallons a day (g/d) of water.

Saudi Electricity Company will take 1,050MW of the plant’s power output and SWCC will take 220 million g/d of desalinated water. Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) will take the remaining output from the plant.