Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (Adwea) has shortlisted 10 international companies, including two consortia, to submit proposals for selection of the developer for the Umm Al Nar independent water and power project.

The two consortia are Belgium's Tractabel with Italy's Enel Power, and UK's International Power with Japan's Mitsui and Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

Others are France's TotalFinaElf, Electricity de France, Korea Electric Power Company (Kepco), AES of the US, Japan's Marubeni Corporation and two German companies, RWE and Steag.

The shortlisted firms have to prepare bids and finalise bidding consortia and submit final proposals by September 22.

The selected developer or developer consortium will own 40 per cent of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase, develop, build, own, operate and maintain the Umm Al Nar water and power complex. The remaining equity will be held directly or indirectly by Adwea.

The complex east of Abu Dhabi city currently has power and desalination capacity of some 1,100 MW and 100 million gallons per day (mgpd) respectively. A further 62.5 mgpd of desalination capacity is under construction, which is expected to be commissioned before the execution of the project agreements and the commercial close of the project.

The project will comprise the purchase of the new 62.5 mgpd desalination capacity and two recently commissioned units of roughly 7 mgpd with associated infrastructure and the development, financing and construction of at least 1,000 MW of new net electricity generating capacity and, potentially, additional water generation capacity.

Commissioning of the first of the new power units should be completed by summer 2005 and the project should be fully operational by summer 2006. Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), Germany's Fitchner and the US' White & Case are acting as advisers for the project.