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Abu Dhabi: The UAE has stepped up its plans to join the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) power grid before schedule, senior officials told Gulf News yesterday.
The board of directors of the GCC Interconnection Authority, which was established in 2001 to carry out the project, met in the capital yesterday to approve the increase and restructuring of the project's capital.
"We have agreed to increase the capital allocated for the first phase of the project from $869 million to $1.212 billion, while maintaining the original shares of the members relative to the total," Yousuf A. Janahi, the authority's chairman told Gulf News.
"The original studies submitted in the late 1980s and early 1990s estimated the project's investment cost at $3.3 billion, while the actual costs turned out to be only a third of this assessment, which meant that we do not need any loans and thus the restructuring of the project's financials to rely totally on the available funds," he said.
The project timeframe divides the construction process into three phases, first of which is the interconnection between the northern countries; namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.
The interconnection between the UAE and Oman comprises the second phase, while in the third phase the whole grid will be connected.
"The UAE was only supposed to join the grid after accomplishing the interconnection with Oman, and the reason was that the country's grid was far from the borders of the Northern countries," Saeed Alo Darmaki, member of the authority's board and deputy director of Transco, said.
"We have already proceeded with the preliminary works for establishing the border sub-station at Al Sela'a to be linked with Al Salwa sub-station in Saudi Arabia, as well as the necessary cable towers," he said.
Construction is on schedule with the exception of the marine cable of the first phase, as the actual geography of the sea bed differed from that outlined in the studies.
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