In February 2017, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Singapore's water agency PUB had picked four firms after a pre-qualification round to bid for a planned Jurong Island desalination plant: Keppel Infrastructure, Sembcorp Utilities, Tuas Power and Malaysia's YTL Power International. The 137,000 m³/day plant was due by 2020 as a design-build-own-operate scheme with a 25-year offtake deal. PUB wanted it placed next to the bidders' existing power or steam plants so that energy and seawater intake and outfall works could be shared.
The report showed Singapore expanding desalination as a weather-independent source and favouring sites where new plants could share seawater infrastructure with existing industrial facilities.