The Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation (APICORP) has produced a report stating that Middle Eastern and North African countries will need to invest $260 billion on increasing electricity production over the next five years to meet rising demand. APICORP said that the region needs to add an extra 117 GW by 2022.
APICORP said $152 billion is needed for investment into generation, and $108 billion for transmission and distribution projects. It estimated that power capacity in the region, currently standing at 321 GW, needs to expand at 6.4 per cent annually to meet growing demand.
The six nations belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – need to spend $89 billion to add 43 GW over the next five years, according to the report. The APICORP report also said that Iran needs to add 25 GW to its current capacity of 77 GW, requiring an estimated investment of $50 billion; that Iraq required investment of $39 billion to add 12 GW; and that Egypt needed $46 billion of investments to add 22 GW of power to increase its capacity to 60 GW by 2022.