GE has won a $300m contract from Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) to supply five steam turbines for the expansion of the Qurayyah open cycle power plant in Saudi Arabia's Eastern province.
SEC said that the five steam turbines will join the 15 GE F-technology gas turbines, which are already operating at the site, converting the plant to combined-cycle operation to help Saudi Arabia meet its goals for greater power generation capacity and efficiency.
When the power plant conversion is completed and scheduled for the second quarter of 2012, the site’s power output will increase from 1,907MW to 3,148MW—a boost of 1,241MW, equivalent to 10% of the SEC installed capacity in the Eastern province. This will help meet the growing industrial and residential power demand in the kingdom’s eastern and central regions, GE said.
When the Qurayyah plant conversion is completed, the combined-cycle facility will include five GE 307FA combined-cycle packages; each featuring three frame7FA gas turbines and one GE D Series steam turbine.
Saudi Arabia’s industry and electricity ministry estimates that the kingdom will require up to 20GW of additional power-generating capacity by 2019.
Ali al-Barrak, president and CEO of SEC, said: “Converting the Qurayyah plant to combined-cycle operation will allow us to produce more power from the same amount of natural gas, which also helps meet our environmental requirements.”
Joseph Anis, president for the Middle East at GE Energy, said: “This latest agreement reflects GE’s commitment to provide the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and our long-standing partner SEC with advanced technology solutions that support their goals of responsible energy growth.”
The engineering and procurement company contract for the plant expansion was secured by the Arabian Bemco Contracting Company and South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries.