Orascom wins $420m Egypt power plant conversion contract

Conversion of the plants will boost capacity by 50 per cent without requiring any additional fuel.

Orascom Construction has announced that it is to undertake a US$420 million contract to convert the recently-completed Assiut and West Damietta power plants in Egypt from simple to combined cycle plants.

The company is part of a consortium that completed the first phase of construction of the 1,000 megawatt (MW) Assiut and the 500MW West Damietta plants during the third quarter of 2015.

In a statement to the Nasdaq Dubai market, the contractor said that converting both into combined cycle plants will boost their capacity by 50 per cent without requiring any extra fuel intake.

Orascom Construction has been appointed to carry out the engineering, procurement and construction of the combined cycle plants, but it is also arranging the financing for the deal.

It is also in the process of building two of the biggest power plants in the world through a joint venture with Siemens. Each of these gas-fired plants will cost €2 billion (Dh8bn) to build, with Orascom’s share of the contracts worth about €1.6bn. Alongside this, it is in a consortium with Abu Dhabi-based International Petreoleum Investment Corporation to build a coal-fired plant with a capacity of up to 3,000MW at a cost of $3bn.

Osama Bishai, the chief executive of Orascom Construction, said: “We are proud of our continued leadership in the development of Egypt’s power sector and are pleased to continue working on Assiut and West Damietta power plants following the milestones achieved at both sites. We look forward to further growth of our power business across our core markets as a contractor and a developer.”

Last month, Egypt’s energy minister Mohamed Shaker said that it expects to add 2,500MW-3,000MW of power to its grid this year in a bid to resolve capacity issues in the country.

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