Barka Water and Power Company (BWPC), a subsidiary of Saudi utility developer Acwa Power, has received a letter of award from Nama Power and Water Procurement Company in Oman (PWP) for extending the power and water purchase agreement (PWPA) for the plant.

The value of the contract extension is $356m, Acwa Power said in a bourse filing on 25 April.

The award includes extending the operation of the power plant for eight years and 9 months with operations starting from 1 June 2024, and the water desalination plant for three years starting from 1 September 2024, with an extension option at PWP’s discretion for a further term of three years and another term of two years and nine 9 months for a total of 8 years and 9 months.

BWPC is registered in Oman and listed in the Muscat Stock Exchange.

The Barka independent water and power project (IWPP) is located 60 kilometres north of Muscat. It began commercial operations in June 2003, and a majority stake was acquired by Acwa Power in August 2010.

At the time it started operations, the facility was contributing 6% of the electricity and 24% of the desalinated water in Oman.

The gas-fired power plant has the capacity to generate 427MW of electricity using combine-cycle gas turbines, while the desalination plant that runs on multi-stage flash technology had an initial capacity of 91,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

A succeeding independent water project entailed the development of a seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant with a capacity of 45,000 cm/d, which became operational in 2014. A further expansion of the SWRO plant, with a capacity of 56,800 cm/d became operational two years later.

Earlier this week, Acwa Power CEO, Marco Arcelli, said his company is in negotiations with long-term investors, such as pension funds, for the selective sale of assets.

The report did not specify which assets are being considered for sale.  

Last week, Arcelli told MEED that Acwa Power and Saudi sovereign wealth vehicle the Public Investment Fund (PIF) are discussing the fourth round of the renewable energy programme that PIF is implementing.

However, he declined to comment on the outage of one of the company's concentrated solar power plants in Morocco, which is expected to result in $47m of lost revenue for the firm.