SEC seeks investors for oil fired IPP

The KSA seeks to meet its power needs with a mix of feedstocks, including oil.

The planned conventional steam power plant in al Qurayah, south of the eastern city of Khobar, will use heavy fuel oil as a feedstock, Ali al Barrak, chief executive of the sate-owned Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), told Reuters on Tuesday.

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"This plant is under the Independent Power Project plan aimed to involve private sector in power production in the kingdom. Requests for proposals will be before the end of this year," said al Barrak.
The deadline for the expression of interest is May 31.

The plant will run it on a build own operate basis, and is the third of six planned IPP power plant projects in the kingdom. Together, the six schemes should add 11,000 megawatts of capacity.

"After pre qualification bidders will be asked to form consortiums and then they can make financial bids, and the best bidder will be selected for talks to complete procedures. We aim to start production at the plant in 2015."

Power demand in the world's largest oil exporter is rising at an annual 8 percent and is expected to triple to 121,000 megawatts from 40,000 MW currently, government officials say.