Consultants have been invited to submit proposals for supplying, installing, operating and maintaining gas turbines in the first phase of Kuwait’s Nuwaiseeb power and water project, which has a planned power generation capacity of 3,600MW and water production capacity of up to 6,000GW when all phases are complete.

According to Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW), the owners of the power and water project, the deadline for submission of proposals is September 26, with details and guidelines on participating in the tender available on the website of Kuwait’s Central Agency for Public Tenders (CAPT).

Kuwait’s MEW is likely to procure the Nuwaiseeb project under a standard engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, it is learnt. The project has been in the planning stages with the MEW for several years now and was originally planned to be developed by the MEW as an EPC project, rather than an independent power producer (IPP) or independent water producer (IWPP) project by the Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects (KAPP). Discussions over the years have finally resulted in the Kuwaiti government deciding to proceed with EPC or an IPP/IWPP model.

Kuwait has already developed the first phase of the Al-Zour North power and water cogeneration plant under the IWPP model, the first in the country to be developed using the model. The KAPP is also planning to procced with Al-Zour phases two and three and Al-Khiran 1 as IWPP projects and appointed an advisory consortium led by Ernst & Young in February for the purpose.

The Al-Zour North two and three thermal power project is planned to have a capacity of 2,700MW and a water desalination capacity of up to 165 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD). The combined second and third phases will be located adjacent to the Al-Zour 1 IWPP, Kuwait’s only IWPP to date, which was commissioned in 2016.

The Al-Khiran IWPP thermal power project will have a power generation capacity of 1,800MW and a desalination capacity of 125MIGD. The Al-Khiran site will be located near the Al-Zour site, approximately 100km south of Kuwait City on the Gulf coast.