Four consortiums led by global players - JGC, GS Inima, Acwa and Tedagua - are in the race to develop an independent seawater desalination project in Sharqiyah area of Oman, with a desalination capacity of 17.6 million gallons per day in Oman.

Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) will award the contract for the Sharqiyah independent water project next month on a build, own, and operate (BOO) basis, reported the Times of Oman.

The plant is expected to start operations in the third quarter of 2019, aimed at meeting the growing demand for potable water, it added.

A request for proposal (RfP) for both Sharqiyah and Salalah IWPs was issued in March 2016 by OPWP, which oversees all new water and power capacity in the sultanate.

Another IWP in the sultanate’s southern Salalah region, which will have a desalination capacity of 22 million gallons per day, got delayed and the same will be awarded in the fourth quarter of 2017, said the report.

Total investment for both the desalination projects is estimated at RO105 million ($272 million), it added.