A consortium led by the US-based power company AES Corporation has been awarded a RO175 million ($455 million) contract to develop the Barka power and desalination project in Oman, according to an official of the Tender Board.

Construction of the power plant is expected to begin in mid-2001 under a 15-year contract on a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis and be completed in 2003.

The Barka project is one of three independent power projects targeted for fast-track implementation by private developers. Envisaged in the first phase is a plant with a power generation capacity of 400-440 MW and 3,800 cu m per hour (approximately 20 million gallons per day) of water production capacity, supplying the Governorate of Muscat and the South Batinah region.

The project does not include the water storage and water transmission infrastructure required to transfer water from the production site to the capital area (30 km east) and the southern Batinah towns of Barka and Musannah (40 km west). Work on this package will be executed on an engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) basis, bids for which have already been invited by the Ministry of Electricity and Water.

A separate tender has been floated for the Barka transmission system project involving the construction of 220/132 kV substations and 220 kV overhead transmission lines. The last date for submission of bids is December 11.