The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) has negotiated with five local banks to borrow $90m to finance the maintenance programmes of Upper Egypt Electricity Production Company (UEEPC).
UEEPC Chairperson Ibrahim El-Shahat said that the loan that was agreed with a local bank to finance the maintenance work has been cancelled, so the EEHC began negotiating with other bodies to secure the funding.
The deal, signed by UEEPC with the local bank, stipulated repaying the loan over 11 years with a grace period of up to four years. According to the agreement, the loan includes tranches in Egyptian pounds, US dollars, and euros.
El-Shahat told Daily News Egypt that the American General Electric company has started developing and modernising the Koraymat station until securing the provisions required to buy spare parts for maintenance.
UEEPC aims to pay the dues of the companies working on maintenance, including Koraymat combined cycle plant Koraymat 1, 2, and 3. Among the companies that began working on maintenance are Siemens and GE.
He said that the companies have carried out simple, regular, and severe overhauls, which differ according to the status of the production units. The overhaul is considered severe in cases where stations have been working for over 36,000 hours, regular after 24,000 hours of work, and simple in cases of 8,000 hours of work.
He pointed out that the Ministry of Electricity has developed a plan to renovate the plants to save fuel and raise efficiency, instead of building new plants, which would cost the state large sums of money.
He explained that the ministry is still preparing for the summer through a plan to raise the efficiency of power plants, the addition of new electrical plants, and the development of the electricity transmission network to absorb the expected increased capacities, in addition to projects to ration and improve energy efficiency.
