Tender floated for raising water capacity in the long run

Muscat: State-owned Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) on Wednesday floated a tender seeking an international consultant to provide advisory services for enhancing water production capacity from 2022.
The selected consultant has to advise the government on economic, financial/commercial and legal areas for the development of a revised process for the future contracting of water capacity by OPWP and the initial implementation of the process to a contracting round aimed at securing capacity from 2022, according to a tender notice.
The tender documents are available between April 25 and May 8, while the last date of bid submission is June 5.
Demand for potable water in Oman’s northern region, which include Muscat governorate, is projected to grow by six per cent per annum in the next four year horizon to 349 million cubic metres in 2020.
A combination of population growth and industrial development, including tourism projects, is cited as a major reason for the growth in demand for potable water.
The OPWP, the sole procurer of new power generation and water desalination capacity, recently signed an OMR100 million agreement with a consortium to establish Myah Gulf Oman Desalination Company to build a water project in Sohar. The project is one of the biggest of its kind in the Al Batinah North Governorate and is expected to meet about 80 per cent of water demand in Al Batinah North, which is witnessed a tremendous growth in urbanisation, tourism and industrial activities.OPWP will have the right to buy the desalinated water produced by the plant during a concession period of 20 years. Slated for commercial operation in 2018, the independent water project will produce 250,000 cubic metres of water per day, based on the reverse osmosis technology.
Eng. Yaqoob bin Saif Al Kiyumi, chief operating officer of OPWP recently said that OPWP plans to build one each major independent water project in Muscat and Northern Batinah regions. The capacity of each project will be higher than 250,000 cubic meters per day. Another independent water project (of roughly around 20,000 cubic liter per day capacity) is coming up in Khasab, which is part of a series of small and large water projected planned in different parts of the country.
OPWP has already floated a request for proposal for developing two other projects – Salalah and Sharqiya – after selecting pre-qualified companies. Eng. Al Kiyumi said that Salalah and Sharqiya water projects are expected to be operational in 2019. A request for proposal seeking bids from pre-qualified companies will be floated before the end of the summer.