He told the media, “The six GCC countries are now joined together via the power grid through cables laid over on land and under the sea. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar joined the power grid in 2009, and later Oman and the UAE were linked in 2011, and now if any country needs extra electricity during the summer or other peak periods, it automatically gets it through this grid. This was the first stage. It has been successful and saved lots of money.

”The Dammam-headquartered GCC Interconnection Authority (GCCIA) was set up in 2001 with the mandate to interlink the six Gulf countries. He said the second stage of the plan is to further link the GCC power grid with the Arab countries network, adding they already were in talks with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.”

Dr Mirza further revealed that Bahrain is planning to use solar panels and offshore wind turbines on and around the planned King Hamad Causeway. The new 25 kilometre long new King Hamad Causeway will link Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.

During the first nine months of 2020, Bahrain awarded around 134 tenders in the oil sector worth $733.8 million, according to Bahrain’s Tender Board. Overall, Bahrain awarded a total of 1022 tenders worth $2.7 billion during the same period. The majority of the contracts were for the oil sector, followed by construction and engineering and the materials, equipment and services sectors.

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Aramco is delaying its projects after crude oil prices fell to a record low this year and also the Covid-19 crisis, which has hammered the demand for oil.

Bloomberg said in its report, “The world’s biggest oil company is scaling back plans to construct a $20 billion crude-to-chemicals plant at Yanbu in eastern Saudi Arabia, according to one person, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorised to speak to the media. It’s also reviewing an earlier decision to buy 25 percent of Sempra Energy’s Texas LNG terminal — which would cost several billion dollars and has already taken some staff off the project, according to a separate person.”

Aramco reported a 73.4 percent fall in its second quarter net profit which stood at $6.57 billion.

Last month, Aramco discovered two new oil and gas fields in the Northern region of Abraq Al Toloul and Al Jof, according to Saudi Arabia’s energy minister.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the new oil field discovered by Aramco in Abraq Al Toloul produces nearly 3,189 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, along with 1.1 million cubic feet of natural gas.

He revealed that the Aramco will go ahead with its plan to boost output capacity despite a significant cut in its capital expenditure for 2020 and 2021.

Aramco pumps around 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude, of which it exports about 6 million bpd.

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The seven major banks that the Saudi Electricity Company signed an agreement with include the National Commercial Bank, Bank Albilad, Al-Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank, Samba Financial Group, Banque Saudi Fransi and the Saudi British Bank.

The financing is a 7-year medium-term facility and is unsecured syndicated borrowing.
Fahad Al Sudairi, president and chief executive of SEC told the media, “SEC is a national utility, delivering electric services to a growing customer base of almost 9.8 million subscribers in Saudi Arabia. Our vigorous focus is to continue demonstrating operational efficiency improvement, achieve a quantum leap in promoting automation and digitization across our business and further enhance the customer service.”

“This successful financing comes as part of SEC’s plans to finance its general corporate purposes as well as finance its capital projects such as smart meters, grid reliability improvement and new interconnection projects. The financing will also lengthen the average maturity of our financing mix and is expected to reflect positively on reducing our weighted average cost of funding.”

Recent media reports revealed that the Saudi Electricity Company is implementing eight projects in Saudi Arabia’s Hail region with contracts worth more than $159 million.
The projects are in line to increase the electricity generating capacity of the kingdom and meet the growing demand.

Last month, the company announced a net loss of SR869 million for the second quarter of 2020, compared to a profit of SR789 million during the same period last year.

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Adnoc earlier revealed that its first-half net profit slumped by 22.4 percent to Dh910 million due to the slump in oil prices and also the coronavirus pandemic.

Adnoc’s revenues fell 22.6 per cent from Dh10.2 billion to Dh7.9 billion.

“We are progressing well on our international expansion strategy. We are in advanced discussions with several counterparties including landlords and retail fuel operators in Saudi Arabia to grow organically, as well as continue to explore inorganic growth opportunities. We see the Saudi Arabian fuel market as large and fragmented with underdeveloped customer offerings,” the company disclosed in its Management Discussion and Analysis Report released during second-quarter results.

Last year, the media reported that Adnoc is looking to make an investment of around $45 billion in the downstream sector with partners in countries such as India, China, and Indonesia.

In India, Adnoc is collaborating with Saudi Aramco to develop a $44 billion oil refinery. Adnoc will work with Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to develop the 1.2 million barrels per day refinery in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
Adnoc also signed an agreement with Rongsheng Petrochemical of China to explore domestic and international opportunities as the oil giant wants to tap into the Southeast Asian market.

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The polycarbonate facility in Cartegena is expected to be fully operational by 2024, powered by a 100MW PV solar plant.

SABIC has signed a deal with Spanish utility company Iberdrola who will invest €70 million to install 263,000 panels for the project.

Reportedly, it will be the largest industrial renewable power plant in Europe.

The renewable energy powered chemical plant project by SABIC is in line with the company’s plan to have 4 gigawatts (GW) of either wind or solar energy installed for its sites globally by 2025, rising to 12GW by 2030.

Saudi Arabia-based oil giant Aramco recently acquired a 70 percent stake in SABIC in a deal worth $69.1 billion.

According to the deal, Aramco acquired 2.1 billion of SABIC’s shares on the Saudi stock exchange, the Tadawul.

A deal was agreed with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) last year. Reportedly, the payment for SABIC will be funded in part by four bonds issued by Aramco to the PIF.

“The deal completion is on-track with expectations to be finalised before the end of the second quarter,” Aramco told Reuters in a statement when asked about the transactions.

In the month of May, Saudi Aramco sought a review of the buying price for SABIC after its value dropped by 40 percent due to a slump in oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The post SABIC to develop world’s first renewable energy powered chemical plant appeared first on International Finance.

According to Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, Saudi energy minister, Saudi Arabia will soon develop a solar project that will produce electricity at the lowest cost per kilowatt.

During the “Don’t Forget Our Planet” conference, organized by Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative Institute (FII-I), Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman revealed that Saudi Arabia aims to produce 50 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030.

He further revealed that Saudi Arabia will also undertake more wind projects.

He said that the kingdom is currently in the process of activating many programs, including increasing the use of electricity by 30 percent through renewable sources, while 50 percent will be generated through hydrocarbon sources, adding that work is also underway to take advantage of the wind energy project to harness it in generating power.

“I can assure you that Saudi Arabia will not only be the last producer, but Saudi Arabia will produce every molecule of hydrocarbon and it will put it to good use, and it will be done in the most environmentally sound and more sustainable way. I am willing to say that by 2050, we will be the last and the biggest producer of hydrocarbon,” Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman told the media.

“I love challenges … We’ll live up to the challenge of sitting on a huge amount of hydrocarbon, and we’ll make better use of it. We are trying to lead by example, and we are putting our money where our mouth is,” he added.

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The project is expected to be completed in 2022. Once operational, it will be the largest desalination plant not only in the UAE but in the world.

The funds will be used to designing, development, operation and maintenance of the 200 million imperial gallons per day desalination plant and associated infrastructure and facilities.

To be developed at the existing Taweelah complex, in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, it also includes a 68 MW peak photovoltaic power plant to complement the energy supply from the procurer’s grid.

The project, which is called the Taweelah Independent Water Project, is 40 percent co-owned by Saudi-based ACWA Power.

Vigeo Eiris, which provided an independent second party opinion on the sustainability credentials and management of this project finance loan said in a statement, “Taweelah Independent Water Project (IWP) project includes a state-of-the-art desalination plant, including modern and energy-efficient technologies for water production (seawater reverse osmosis), higher standards and monitoring of its effluents’ water quality”.

“The technology employed is considered by the World Bank as the most energy-efficient and best-in-class among existing desalination technology. The new desalination plant will significantly increase – almost doubling – the volume of water supply available to the local water network and population, aligned with the projected doubling of local water demand by 2050”.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be around AED3.19 billion. Renewable energy is expected to account for at least 30 percent of the project’s electricity capacity in the next 10 years. The target is to raise it to 55 percent by the end of the first quarter-life of the project.

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With its ability to produce nuclear energy, UAE becomes the 33rd peaceful nuclear operating nation to achieve this status.

Recently, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) revealed that operations at the Barakah nuclear plant has begun after it completed fuel assembly loading into Unit 1 reactor of the nuclear power plant.

ENEC received an operating licence from the UAE Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) in the month of February.

Reportedly, the plant will enter its second stage of development now which will be led by Nawah – the operations and maintenance subsidiary of ENEC and the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).

Mohamed Al Hammadi, Chief Executive Officer of ENEC told the media, “Our teams have been training over the years to safely progress towards providing the UAE with clean, reliable and abundant electricity to power our economic and societal growth. Today, we are very proud as the UAE joins a limited group of nations who have achieved the global standards necessary to become peaceful nuclear operating nations.”

“We take this responsibility very seriously and our teams are safely and steadily transitioning through the sophisticated, highly-regulated process to advance Unit 1 towards full electrical generation capacity.”

ENEC is currently in the final stages of construction for the remaining three units of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi. Reportedly, the development of the four units is 93 percent complete.

The four units at Barakah nuclear power plant will generate 5,600 MW of clean electricity, which accounts for 25 percent of the UAE’s energy demand. Simultaneously, it will also prevent the release of 21 million tons of carbon emissions each year.

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Samsung will jointly develop the power plant with Japanese developer Marubeni in Fujairah, located around 300 kilometre northeast of Abu Dhabi, the UAE.

According to the contract, Samsung will take the role of the exclusive engineering, procurement, and construction contractor. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in April 2023.

Once operational, the new plant, to be developed by Samsung, will power around 380,000 homes in the UAE. It is also expected to be the largest independent thermal power plant in the UAE.

Besides winning a contract to develop a power plant, Samsung is also developing a nuclear power plant in the UAE. In the Middle Eastern region, Samsung is also working on a metro station project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and on a desalination plant in Qatar.

Earlier this year, Samsung Construction and Trading announced that it has won a contract to develop the third terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

The project will be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Bangladeshi government. This project is expected to be completed in 2023.

Last year, the company won a combined cycle power plant project in Bangladesh from Reliance Bangladesh LNG and Power Limited. The Meghnaghat Combined Cycle Power Plant project will be developed at a cost of $630 million and is slated for completion by 2022.

The post Samsung wins $952 mn contract to develop power plant in the UAE appeared first on International Finance.

According to DEWA, it had recorded 1.86 minutes in electricity customer minutes lost, which is relatively lower when compared to the 15 minutes recorded by many developed nations in Europe.

Managing director and chief executive at DEWA, HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer told the media, “We continuously work to enhance the capacity and efficiency of transmission and distribution networks to provide electricity and water services according to the highest standards of reliability, availability, efficiency, and sustainability. This is to meet the growing demand for energy and water and keep pace with Dubai’s ambitious urban and economic plans.

“We are proud that DEWA is part of the UAE’s global achievements that are accomplished by Emirati men and women who do their best to provide state-of-the-art services to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world.”

Besides setting a world record in saving water and electricity, DEWA has ranked first for the third consecutive year in Getting Electricity, as per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report. The report takes into account 190 different regions across the globe.

According to media reports, DEWA is also partnering with Siemens, a Germany-based industrial manufacturing giant, as a part of the UAE’s government’s digitalisation goal.

Both parties will jointly organise a series of seminars and lectures focusing on the introduction of blockchain. The partnership is a part of the government’s plan to carry out 50 percent of the federal government transactions using blockchain by the end of 2021.

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