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Lowest bidder emerges for Kuwait’s Doha desalination plant

19 August 2025

Kuwait-based Heavy Engineering Industries & Shipbuilding Company has submitted the lowest bid for a tender to supply, install, operate and maintain the second phase of the Doha seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant in Kuwait.

The project scope includes the installation of reverse osmosis desalination facilities, along with alkalinisation equipment for the treated water.

The bidders and their prices are:

  • Heavy Engineering Industries & Shipbuilding Company: KD114.28m ($373.2m)
  • Cox Water SL: KD164.80m ($538.1m)
  • Orascom Construction: KD174.13m ($568.4m)

The tender was issued by Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water & Renewable Energy, and the deadline closed on 5 August 2025.

The Doha SWRO desalination plant is part of Kuwait’s broader programme to expand water production capacity and reduce reliance on thermal desalination methods.

In April, MEED reported that Kuwait had retendered the contract for the facility.

The ministry had previously cancelled the initial tender in June last year. 

When it was first tendered, the Doha SWRO phase two project was expected to have a capacity of 60 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD).

The Ministry of Electricity & Water awarded South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction – now known as Doosan Enerbility – a $422m contract in May 2016 to build the 60 MIGD Doha 1 SWRO plant.

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Mark Dowdall

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