Qatar, holder of the world’s third- largest natural gas reserves, increased its power-generating capacity by 1,833 megawatts with the completion of the first phase of Ras Laffan C, the country’s biggest power project.
The $3.9bn plant will generate 30 percent of the emirate’s electric power by next year after its capacity is expanded to 2,730 megawatts, Ras Girtas Power Co, the company executing the project, said in an e-mailed press release on Thursday.
Qatar is utilising its estimated 8.96 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves to build industrial, chemical and power plants. The country aims to raise its electric generating capacity to 9,000 megawatts by 2012 from 4,200 megawatts as of last May, according to state-controlled Qatar National Bank.
Qatar will be able to export 500 megawatts of electricity to neighboring states during peak-demand summer months by 2012 over a regional electric grid, Abdullah bin al-Attiyah, the country’s energy minister, said last year.
Qatar said it couldn’t provide Kuwait with summer power last year, Meshan al-Otaibi, a spokesman at Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water, said in July 2009.
Ras Laffan C is scheduled to reach full capacity by next April, GDF Suez SA, a Ras Girtas shareholder, said in May. Other Ras Girtas shareholders include Qatar Electricity and Water Co., state-owned Qatar Petroleum and Japan’s Mitsui & Co.
Ras Laffan C will be the second-largest power plant in the Middle East behind the 2,750-megawatt Marafiq plant in Saudi Arabia, Bernard Ott, Qatari general manager for GDF Suez, said in an interview last year. (Bloomberg)
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