Dentons, a leading law firm, has advised Qurayyat Desalination, a special-purpose company formed by Hyflux and Modern Channel Services, with respect to the Qurayyat independent water project  (IWP) in Oman.

Qurayyat Desalination was awarded $250-million contract to design, build, own and operate the Qurayyat desalination project in Qurayyat, Oman, by the government-owned Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) under a 20-year water purchase agreement.

The project will add another 200,000 cu m per day of drinking water to the country’s water supply.  

The transaction reached financial close in June and involved cross-border elements across Oman, Singapore, the UK and the UAE.

Dentons Middle East senior partner, Neil Cuthbert, said: "We are delighted to have worked with Hyflux and Modern Channel Sources on this independent water project in Oman, particularly as it was Hyflux's first build-own-operate (BOO) project in the Middle East."

The Dentons team was led by Cuthbert and assisted by partners Ian McGrath in Istanbul, Ian Dalley in Abu Dhabi and Paul Sheridan, Andrew Figgins and Sadaf Buchanan in Muscat, as well as Dubai associates Carina Onzer and Mona Hammadi.

Dentons' leading energy and project finance teams have an in-depth understanding of the Oman market, having first advised on the privatisation of the sultanate's power and water sector in the late 1990s. The team has since worked on many power and water projects in Oman, advising both the government of Oman as well as the private sector, the company said. - TradeArabia News Service