Kuwait – 21 May, 2013: ASAR – Al Ruwayeh & Partners (ASAR), Kuwait’s leading and most prominent corporate law firm, and one of the region’s top tier firms recently announced that it has been appointed as the legal advisor to the consortium that has been formed by the Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB) to advise on the Al-Khairan independent water and power producer (IWPP) project.

The consortium will be advising the PTB on the project being planned to generate power with a minimum capacity of 2500MW through a Conventional Thermal Steam Power Plant (using Low Sulfur Fuel Oil -LSFO, Gas Oil, Crude Oil and /or Natural Gas). The Project will be located at Al Khairan, south of the existing Al-Zour South Power and Water Production Station. In addition to its power generation capacity, the project will include a Sea Water Desalination Plant with a total minimum capacity of 125 MIGPD utilizing multistage flash (MSF), multi-effect distillation and/or reverse osmosis (RO) technology.

The ASAR team will include the partners Mr. Robert Little and Mr. Ibrahim Sattout, and senior associate Mrs. Akusa Batwala, who have been also advising the PTB and the consortium on the Al-Zour North IWPP project and on other projects across the transportation, infrastructure and health sectors.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Ahmed Barakat, Managing Partner at ASAR said: “We are proud to be appointed as local legal advisors for the consortium and the PTB with respect to Al-Khairan project. The project is in line with the country’s state-wide mega development plan, and reflects the continued good working relationship that has been established from dealing with the PTB, having worked with the PTB on a number of other similar projects previously in Kuwait.”

Al-Khairan is one of an extensive list of power, water, infrastructure, transport, communications and renewable projects proposed by the PTB as part of Kuwait’s Public-Private Partnership.

“According to leading research provider, MEED Insight, governments across the GCC are investing heavily in power and water related projects with total investments reaching $25 billion in 2011, along with 68 projects in Kuwait valued at close $3 billion in 2012,” commented Mr. Ibrahim Sattout.

With dedicated offices in Kuwait and Bahrain coupled with its associated offices and relationships, ASAR provides clients across an extensive range of industry sectors with comprehensive legal advice and support for their business activities in Kuwait, across the GCC and beyond.

The firm has been consistently rated as the leading corporate and commercial law firm in Kuwait by reputable legal guides such as the Chambers Global Guide, International Financial Law Review and the Legal 500. In their annual law firm Global Guide for 2013, Chambers & Partners have exclusively ranked ASAR as Kuwait’s only tier 1 law firm for business law. In 2012, ASAR was named as the “Best Law Firm in Kuwait 2012” by the International Financial Law Review (IFLR), the market-leading guide for financial law firms worldwide. The firm also won the “Best Equity Deal in the Middle East” award by IFLR during the same year.