OPWP plans power project in Sur with gas as feedstock

By V L Srinivasan

Muscat, May 2 - After putting on hold the 1,000MW coal-fired power project in Duqm, the Oman Power and Water Procurement Co (OPWP) is considering a gasbased power plant of equal capacity at Sur, in the Sharqiyah region.

OPWP officials were looking for an alternative after their plan to set up the coal-fired power project at Duqm was shelved after members of the Majlis a’Shura and Majlis al Dawla expressed their reservations at a seminar organised by the Ministry of National Economy (MoNE) early this year.

OPWP officials are already in consultation with their counterparts in the Ministry of Oil and Gas and after a final decision is taken in the coming two to three months, expressions of interest will be called from private parties for the project.

The project, for which 4-5mn cu m of natural gas is required, will be commissioned within 36 months of the start of work. However, OPWP is yet to take a decision on whether to construct a desalination plant along with the power project.

“We need to double the existing capacity of 4,000MW in the next seven years so as to meet the demand for electricity which is growing at the rate of 13 per cent per annum,” official sources in OPWP told Muscat Daily.

According to them, Sur is being considered as a pipeline for supplying gas already exists and it was a good location for the grid with its better transmission infrastructure. The other advantage for Sur is that several industries were coming up in the Sharqiyah region and they too would need power for their operations, sources said.