Bidders line up for new power projects
Egypt, Economics, 4/10/2000

International power project developers and suppliers are preparing to bid for three new schemes scheduled to go to tender in the next few months.

The first is a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) gas turbine, solar power plant for which pre qualification bids are due by April 17. Companies are also expected to be invited in late April or early May to apply to prequalify for a 650-MW BOOT combined cycle project at Cairo North power station. The third scheme, due to go out to tender in the second half of the year, is a 650-MW combined cycle plant at Nuberiya, in the Delta, to be financed by Gulf aid agencies and from the resources of the Egyptian Electricity Authority (EEA).

For the gas turbine, solar power scheme, some 20 companies purchased the pre qualification documents, according to the joint client, the New, Renewable Energy Authority and the EEA. Many of the companies have since joined forces in consortiums, and so the number of applications is expected to be less than 10. The client says a short list will be drawn up in about one month.

Interested companies are understood to include Duke Solar Energy of the US, Israel's Solel Solar Systems, Marubeni Corporation of Japan, bidding with Italy's Enel power, the power arm of Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) and a consortium of AES Energy of the US, local power engineering firm PGESCo and Mexant, the solar power division of Bechtel of the US.

The integrated solar combined cycle plant will have 30 MW of solar generation and up to 120 MW of gas turbine capacity. It will be built at Kuraimat, about 100 kilometers south of Cairo. Prospective bidders say the project poses a difficult technological challenge in combining the solar and gas turbine elements. However, there is the incentive of a guarantee from the World Bank of up to $50 million in finance for the project from the global environment facility. Germany's Lahmeyer International is the consultant.

The EEA had earlier indicated that it planned to offer two new combined cycle projects this year on a BOOT basis. However, industry sources say it has since been decided to offer only the Cairo North project on this basis and to take advantage of concessionary finance available from the Gulf for the Nuberiya scheme.

Three BOOT power plants are now under construction. A partnership of InterGen of the US and Edison International of Italy is building a 650-MW plant at Sidi Krier, and Electricite de France is building two 650-MW plants at Suez and East Port Said.

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