Bahrain’s Electricity & Water Authority has put elements of its Hawar Island desalination scheme back out to tender, a further twist in a procurement process that has already run through multiple rounds of bidding since the New Hawar seawater reverse osmosis plant was first floated for tender.
The desalination facility itself — designed to produce around 1 million imperial gallons a day of potable water — has attracted a wide spread of pricing across its various bid rounds, from a low bid of roughly $8.6 million up to offers exceeding $114 million, according to tender records reviewed by industry publication MEED. EWA had earlier been expected to announce an award in early 2026, following a tender process that opened in 2025, but the project has instead continued to move through further stages of bidding and evaluation.
The EPC works for the main SWRO facility are tied to two related contracts that must be delivered in parallel: one covering construction of a new water distribution station, and another covering offshore seawater intake and outfall systems. EWA has said the main desalination contractor will be required to align its design and construction with both of these packages so the three components function as a single integrated system — a coordination requirement that has added complexity to an already long procurement timeline. A separate contract for the water distribution station, valued at around $15 million and covering two steel ground storage tanks, pumping stations and pipelines, has also seen its bid deadline pushed back amid the wider scheduling challenges.
The stakes for finishing the project stem largely from what is currently on Hawar Island: limited utility infrastructure, no permanent desalination capacity, and mounting government interest in the archipelago as a tourism destination, with eco-resort and hospitality investment planned that will need a reliable supply of potable water. EWA has continued to run parallel procurement on the island, including bids for a separate brackish-water reverse osmosis unit designed for a far smaller 300 cubic metres a day, underscoring how many moving pieces are involved in bringing Hawar’s water infrastructure up to standard.
The retendering follows an earlier expectation that EWA would award the SWRO contract in early 2026, itself building on the authority’s original decision to open bidding for the Hawar Island plant the previous autumn. With the project now cycling through additional tender stages, EWA has yet to confirm a revised timeline for when construction might finally begin.
(Source: MEED)