Gulf Construction Online - Fujairah plant O&M deal awarded

UAE Focus

Fujairah plant O&M deal awarded

01 April 2003

Union Water and Electricity Company has selected Sogex Oman for an operations and maintenance contract on its Fujairah power and desalination plant.

The five-year contract was valued at Dh137.28 million ($37.39 million). Other bidders were Belgium's Tractabel Electricity and Gas International with Germany's Babcock Borsig Power, UK's Innogy with Thames Water Overseas, and the US' CMS Energy.

The deal involves the operation and maintenance of a 656 MW power unit and a 100 million gallons per day (mgpd) water desalination plant under construction in Qidfa and the 179 km dual pipeline, which can pump up to 180 mgpd of water to Sweihan.

The plant will produce 62.5 mgpd of water by using the multi-stage flash technology and 37.5 mgpd by using reverse osmosis. This makes the project the only one in the Middle East and one of the biggest in the world using a combination of the two water desalination technologies.

South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company is building the power unit and desalination plant under a Dh2.9 billion contract.

The UAE's Al Jaber Energy Services and Technip is undertaking the Dh1.6 billion contract for the 179-km dual pipeline to Sweihan, an 18-km spur to Al Dhaid in Sharjah, the water pumping stations and associated facilities.

Union Water will also build a second project with a 1,000 MW power unit and a 100 mgpd desalination plant at Qidfa. The company has received prequalification documents from 14 companies for a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contract.

PB Power and Mott MacDonald of the UK, Lahmyer International and Fitchner of Germany have bid for the project management consultancy.