Delayed Kuwaiti desal/power plant invites bids

Kuwait's much-delayed privately managed power and desalination plant invites bids. (Getty Images)

Companies looking to help develop Kuwait’s infrastructure have been invited to bid on the Kingdom’s first-ever privately managed power and desalination plant at Az Zour North, Dow Jones Newswires has reported.

The initial phase of the independent power and water project is planned to have the capacity to generate 1,500 megawatts of power and, after being delayed by more than 12 months, will be built in four stages.

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“Az Zour has been delayed for more than a year now,” said Suhaila Marafi, director of the department of studies and research at Kuwait’s ministry of electricity and water, “but the request for proposal was put out yesterday (Monday).”

The project will see a power and desalination complex built at a greenfield site in Az Zour North. It has already been delayed repeatedly after it was first tendered in 2006, after issues relating to the availability of gas saw planners change designs to a combined-cycle plant, for which the expertise had to be brought in from the Emirates.

The Az Zour project will help the Kingdom in its bid to meet a target of increasing its power generation by 10,000MW by 2020.