GDF Suez gets Bahrain desal contract

Paris-based GDF Suez announced that it has won a contract to build a $2 billion power generation and seawater desalination plant in Bahrain. GDF Suez teamed up with Kuwait's Gulf Investment Corp. in the bidding consortium on the project.

The Al Dur 1 plant will be a natural gas-fired facility delivering 1,234 megawatts of electricity and 218,000 cubic meters of water per day. The plant is expected to be complete in 2011.

The project will deliver electricity and water to Bahrain's Electricity and Water Authority under a 20-year power and water purchase agreement commencing on June 1, 2011. The first phase of the project is scheduled to start in the summer of 2010, with full capacity expected to be achieved in the summer of 2011.

The plant, which GDF said is the largest desalination plant with reverse osmosis technology in the Middle East, consists of a combined cycle gas turbine power plant and a reverse osmosis desalination plant, together with support facilities including seawater intake and discharge structures, and gas connection facilities.

GDF and Gulf Investment Corp. selected Hyundai Heavy Industries as the contractor on the project. General Electric (NYSE: GE) will supply the power plant turbines and Degremont, a subsidiary of Suez Environnement, will provide the reverse osmosis technology.

Earlier this week, Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources secured approval from the California State Lands Commission for a large desalination plant in Carslbad, Calif. (see Largest desalination plant in Western world gets go-ahead).

Poseidon plans to start construction in the first half of 2009, with the first water expected to be sold to local agencies in 2011.

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