Kuwait Qualifies 41 Firms for Housing PPP Scheme as Power Tenders Advance in South Saad Al-Abdullah
Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare, known as PAHW, has qualified 41 Kuwaiti and international companies, grouped into 22 consortia, to compete for the next stage of three residential public private partnership schemes, the authority announced on 31 August 2026. On the same day, contractors submitted bids for two separate power substation contracts tied to the South Saad Al-Abdullah residential development, according to MEED, pointing to simultaneous progress across several strands of Kuwait’s national housing programme.
Forty-One Companies Qualify Across Three Housing Schemes
The authority said the 22 qualified consortia comprise 27 Kuwaiti companies and 14 international companies, all of which met the technical and financial requirements set out under Law No. 118 of 2023, the legislation governing public private partnerships in housing project delivery. Engineer Ahmed Al-Ansari, the authority’s acting deputy director general for investment and private sector projects, said the qualification results were split across three schemes under its Real Estate Developer programme: 6 consortia for the Al-Mutlaa city project, 8 consortia for the East Saad Al-Abdullah city project, and 8 consortia for the West Saad Al-Abdullah city project together with an associated service corridor in Jaber Al-Ahmad city. Al-Ansari said the qualified groups will now move to the next phase of the tender process, under which private consortia design, finance and build integrated residential communities in partnership with the Kuwaiti government.
Substation Bids Submitted for South Saad Al-Abdullah Phases Three and Four
The authority received bids on 26 August for two tenders covering power substation works at the South Saad Al-Abdullah residential development, a separate new city project south west of Kuwait City, MEED reported. The first tender covers the supply, installation and maintenance of 10 main 132 over 11 kilovolt transformer substations for the third phase of the development. Five contractors submitted bids, with the Kuwaiti firm Sayed Hamid Behbehani and Sons offering the lowest price at 104.2 million dollars, ahead of Industrial Electrical Projects at 111.5 million dollars, Larsen and Toubro of India at 114 million dollars, Oman National Engineering and Investment at 118 million dollars, and National Contracting Company of Saudi Arabia at 126 million dollars.
The second tender covers a further 10 main 132 over 11 kilovolt transformer substations for the fourth phase of the project. Five contractors again submitted bids on 26 August, with Al-Ahleia Switchgear of Kuwait offering the lowest price at 103.3 million dollars, followed by Industrial Electrical Projects at 111.7 million dollars, Larsen and Toubro at 114 million dollars, Oman National Engineering and Investment at 118.3 million dollars, and National Contracting Company at 126 million dollars.
Both tenders were first issued in May 2026, before the authority issued addendums revising the qualification requirements for bidders. Under the revised terms, contractors must be approved by Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy and demonstrate experience installing at least 10 132 kilovolt substations in Kuwait, along with meeting new manufacturing approval and equipment performance criteria for transformers and gas insulated switchgear.
A Parallel Push Across Kuwait’s New Cities
The South Saad Al-Abdullah substation tenders sit alongside a separate procurement process for the South Sabah Al-Ahmad residential development, another new city under the same authority, where bids remain under evaluation for two 132 kilovolt underground cable contracts also tendered in May 2026. On our reading, the clustering of three distinct procurement milestones, the housing PPP prequalification, the South Saad Al-Abdullah substation bids, and the Sabah Al-Ahmad cable tenders, within days of each other indicates multiple strands of Kuwait’s national housing programme are advancing concurrently rather than in sequence. South Saad Al-Abdullah was originally announced in 2016, according to Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA, as Kuwait’s first smart and environment friendly city, planned to span 59 square kilometers, house 400,000 people and include more than 30,000 housing units. On our calculation, the two substation packages now being finalized for its third and fourth phases alone, worth in excess of 200 million dollars at the lowest submitted prices, cover only the transformer infrastructure for two of what will likely be several development phases across a city of that planned scale, suggesting further utility tenders should be expected as remaining phases proceed.
Why it matters: Housing delivery for citizens has been a longstanding policy priority in Kuwait, with successive governments relying on master planned new cities such as Saad Al-Abdullah and Sabah Al-Ahmad to reduce a persistent backlog of housing applications. The qualification of 41 companies for the Real Estate Developer programme indicates continued private sector interest in Kuwait’s housing PPP model since its formalisation under Law No. 118 of 2023. The parallel advance of the South Saad Al-Abdullah substation tenders shows utility infrastructure, often a bottleneck for new city projects in the Gulf, progressing in step with residential construction, which is relevant to how quickly completed units can reach citizens.
Outlook: The authority is expected to move the 22 qualified consortia into the next tendering stage for the Al-Mutlaa, East Saad Al-Abdullah and West Saad Al-Abdullah and Jaber Al-Ahmad schemes in the coming months. For the substation tenders, technical and commercial evaluation of the five bids submitted for each of the third and fourth phase packages is expected to proceed toward contract award, subject to compliance with the revised qualification requirements. Continued procurement activity at the South Sabah Al-Ahmad site points to further contract news from Kuwait’s new residential cities in the period ahead.
Source: MEED; Kuwait’s Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW); Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)
