The sultanate of Oman has granted private construction and management companies a major power station project as part of plans to privatise the electricity sector, a ministry official said Sunday.
The power station, with a 200-megawatt capacity, will be built in the southern town of Salalah, 1,000 kilometres (625 miles) from Muscat, by an Omani firm called Dhofar in association with the "US firm Global," the official said.
The $231 million project will be partially financed by French bank BNP-Paribas while 40 percent of the capital will be raised by a public offering in mid-2001, he told the official ONA news agency.
The project, expected to be operational in 2002, will be implemented on a Build, Operate, Transfer basis, with ownership of the plant being handed back to the government after a 20-year lease.
AES Corp. of the United States in November won a $411-million contract for the construction and operation of an electricity and water desalination plant at Barka, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Muscat.
Barka was the second venture in the Omani government's fast-track power privatization programme, following the 1996 award of an independent power project being developed by Britain's National Power in Al-Kamil, south of Muscat.
Oman, like the other Gulf Arab petromonarchies, is taking steps to increase the role of the private sector in development to shield it from fluctuating oil prices.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
