General Electric Co. (Fairfield, CT), the world's largest power turbine maker, won an order to help build a $500 million electricity plant in Qatar, the company said.
The company, the world's largest by market value, will supply power turbines to produce 597 megawatts of electricity at the Ras Abu Fontas 2 plant being built by the Qatar Electricity & Water Co (QEWC), the company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday, without giving the exact value of its contract. It costs about $500,000 per megawatt to install gas-fuelled power turbines in the Gulf, according to industry benchmarks.
The plant "will enable us to fulfill Qatar's need for greater demand for power and water and will also allow increased production levels of these important utilities," Second Deputy Premier and Energy and Industry Minister HE Abdullah bin Hamad al- Attiyah, who is also QEWC chairman, said.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran are among Middle Eastern countries that need to invest a total of about $100 billion during the next decade to almost double their power-generation capacity as population growth and industrial expansion spur demand, according to Frankfurt-based Lahmeyer, a unit of RWE, the world’s second-largest publicly traded utility. Impregilo’s Fisia Italimpianti unit will expand the plant's water desalination facilities, adding 30 million gallons a day of treatment capacity, General Electric said.
