Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC) signed a deal Wednesday to build a 4,000-megawatt (MW) gas fired power plant aimed at keeping up with rapidly rising Saudi power demand. The giant gas plant near Al-Khobar will burn 600 million cubic feet a day (mcfd) of natural gas, Amer Al-Swaha, head of Independent Power Projects (IPP) at SEC, told Reuters. The SR10.7 billion ($2.85 billion) power plant deal – signed with a consortium led by Saudi Acwa Power Projects and including South Korea's Samsung C&T – combines two plant project phases. Al-Qurayyah, south of the eastern city of Al-Khobar, which had been planned in two parts – IPP1 and IPP2 – is the third of five now planned (IPP) that will add a total of around 11,000 MW of capacity. “The fuel will be natural gas and part of it will come from the old, retired gas-fired power plants which are already more than 35 or 40 years old and will be shut down and the allocated gas will be diverted to this power plant,” Ali Bin Saleh Al-Barrak, CEO of the Saudi Electricity Co., said.
