In August 2018, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) had shortlisted eight bidders for the Al Ghubrah III independent water and power project in Muscat, with a desalination plant of 300,000 m³/day. They were Cobra with FCC Aqualia and Majis Industrial Services, GS Inima, ACWA Power, International Power, Marubeni, Sembcorp Utilities, Suez International, and Sumitomo with Malakoff International. Eleven firms had applied. A request for proposals was expected within months, and completion was planned for 2022.
The report showed how many international developers and consortia competed for a large Gulf desalination project and how selective the shortlist was, with three of eleven applicants dropping out.