Minister of Electricity Ahmed Imam confirmed that he would send the manual of executive and advisory conditions for the Egyptian Saudi electrical linkage project to international consulting firms within a week, after a review of the final draft of the terms of reference.
Imam made clear in his Saturday statement that the tender process is the end to a series of steps taken in acceleration with time, including the commission of the necessary environmental studies on connection paths and a review of the abridged list of firms with previous experience in this sector. He indicated that all observations by both the Saudis and Egyptians were included in the terms of reference for the final copy of the call for tenders.
The minister said that he expects to send the list of references to 10 international consulting firms and to receive their technical and financial proposals in order to select the most favourable one. He added that there is already an agreement to sign the commercial and operational contracts of the project. The project is expected to be complete in 2016 and operating tests will proceed in 2015.
It stated that the project’s executive and consultative work would include review and renewal of the project manual for execution tenders and presentation of technical support during the period before and after the call of tenders. Included in this is the evaluation of proposals for tenders.
The Egyptian Saudi electrical linkage project is based on the exchange of electrical energy between the two countries to increase the combined capacity of the electrical grid during peak periods to approximately 3,000 megawatts, and to benefit from the discrepancy in peak consumption periods between the two countries.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia experiences peak hours during the afternoon, whereas Egypt experiences peaks after sunset. With the time change this is more than three hours apart. This will allow both countries to secure and exchange energy. During non-peak hours, both countries will exchange excess energy on a commercial basis.
Translated from AlBorsa Daily http://goo.gl/m1ZcD0
