Saudi Aramco to expand capacity to meet fuel production demands

• 12 years ago (2011-05-15)
• Junior Isles

Middle East 311 North America 998

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Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest state-owned oil company, plans to double its power- generating capacity to 4000 MW by 2015 in order to meet expected demand from crude and natural gas production.

The company is expanding its power plants at existing oil and gas sites and aims to build generators for other facilities that are under development, Ziyad Al Shiha, the executive director of Aramco Power Systems, told reporters at a conference in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, like many Persian Gulf oil producers, is boosting its power supplies to meet the demands of a growing economy and population. It is also looking for new ways to help reduce the use of their most valuable export for domestic generation.

Saudi Arabia may need to burn as much as 3 million barrels of oil a day by 2020 to generate power if it does not improve efficiency, Al Shiha said. This would far exceed the 800 000 barrels of oil equivalent that the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources estimates the kingdom’s power plants currently use.

“The growth in power and water demand is huge, and the investments required are huge,” Abdullah al-Shehri, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority, said at the Saudi Water, Electricity and Power conference in Dhahran.

Aramco is aiming for an increase in generating capacity to as much as 4700 MW from the current 2000 MW, but does not currently have a timeframe for when this would be realised, Al Shiha said. Though the additional capacity would not be part of the national power grid, and it would make Aramco independent in power by 2015, he confirmed.

Saudi Arabia has a current generating capacity of about 45 000 MW, according to the state utility Saudi Electricity Company. This is likely to almost double to 75 000 MW by 2018 and rise to more than 120 000 MW by 2030, according to the utility.

The country could save “hundreds of thousands” of barrels and cut peak power demand by at least 10 000 MW over the next 20 years if it takes steps to curb oil consumption and conserve energy, the regulatory authority’s al-Shehri said.

In one such step, Aramco is moving to develop electricity and also make use of waste heat.

Better fuel efficiency at power plants and industrial sites could save as much as 1 billion cubic feet of gas that is currently wasted, providing enough fuel to produce 60 000 MW, Aramco’s Al Shiha said.