Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority (Sewa) has put three of its projects at Hamriya on hold, including one power plant and two desalination units, which it is understood to be reviewing in light of the current poor economic climate.

In July 2008, Sewa issued a letter of intent for the Hamriya power plant project to a consortium of the US’ GE and Canada’s SNC Lavalin, and ordered three gas turbines from GE. However, there has been no progress on the scheme since then and a contract with the winning bidder has never been signed.

The group was one of three bidders for the project in January 2008, with France’s Alstom and a team of Switzerland-based ABB with Iraq’s Uruk Group also submitting bids.

GE declined to comment on the status of the project.

With a planned capacity of 1,900MW, the Hamriya power plant would be the largest in the emirate. Once completed, it would bring the total power generating capacity installed at the site to 2,300MW.

Progress on two of Sewa’s desalination projects has also stalled. The first is a 40 million gallon-a-day (g/d) multi-effect distillation plant. Bids for the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the plant were made by France’s Sidem, Italy’s Fisia Italimpianti and the US’ Aquatech.

Bids for a second plant, with a capacity of 80 million g/d of desalinated water, which would use reverse-osmosis technology, were also submitted on 28 February 2008. Austria’s Aqua Engineering, Aquatech, South Korea’s Doosan Engineering & Construction, Fisia Italimpianti, GE and Abu Dhabi-based Pal Technology all made offers for the plant.

Sewa completed its review of technical bids for both desalination schemes in August 2008, but it has not requested commercial offers from any of the bidders since then.

It is unclear when progress on any of the three projects will resume. According to one source close to the schemes, Sewa is reviewing its projections for power and water demand in the emirate.

Several projects at Hamriya are going ahead, however, suggesting that the plans for the power and water plants have not been abandoned altogether.

Sewa is in final negotiations for a contract to build pumping stations and a seawater intake
and outfall system to serve the Hamriya site.

In September 2008, the authority selected Sogreah Gulf, the Dubai-based subsidiary of France’s Sogreah, to design and supervise the works to build the intake and outfall facilities.

Sharjah is not the only emirate to have delayed utilities projects as a result of the current economic climate.

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority has now cancelled bids for phase 1 of its planned P Station project at Hassyan on two occasions. It also recently extended the bid deadline for the second phase of the project to 12 April from 29 January (MEED 9:1:09).