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Firms await Shoaiba and Shuqaiq IPP tenders

30 January 2025

 

Utility developers and contractors are awaiting the procurement timeline for Saudi Arabia’s next gas-fired independent power projects (IPPs) in Shoaiba and Al-Shuqaiq.

The principal buyer, Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), cancelled the transaction advisory tender for the initial next set of gas-fired IPPs, the 2,400MW Al-Rais IPP and the 3,600MW Riyadh 16 IPP, MEED reported in November.

Industry sources told MEED that instead of procuring the Al-Rais and Riyadh 16 plants, SPPC was now planning to procure two new gas-fired power plants in Shoaiba and Al-Shuqaiq.

As of January, SPPC has not yet appointed or confirmed a transaction advisory team for the Shoaiba and Al-Shuqaiq IPPs, according to industry sources.

This could imply that the tender for utility developers may not be ready before 2026.

The advisory work will determine the final capacities of both power plants, whose tentative capacities are estimated at 2,600MW each.

“I believe there is an ongoing review of the kingdom’s electricity demand growth and supply, and they may not start the procurement process for the Shoaiba and Al-Shuqaiq IPPs until that is completed,” one of the sources told MEED.

SPPC awarded the contracts to develop four combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants with a total combined capacity of 7.2GW in 2024. It awarded the same capacity in 2023.

The new CCGT plants will replace ageing fleets that run on liquid fuel as well as boost baseload capacity as the ratio of renewable power in the grid increases in line with a target to reach 50% by 2030.

Mena generation capacity

The overall power generation capacity across 17 Middle East and North Africa (Mena) countries is expected to rise from 442.5GW in 2020 to 633.5GW by 2030, according to a forecast by GlobalData last year.

This equates to a compounded average growth rate of over 4% annually during the forecast period.

The total estimated power capacity across the 17 countries as of 2023 was 484.3GW.

READ MEED’s YEARBOOK 2025

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Published on 31 December 2024 and distributed to senior decision-makers in the region and around the world, the MEED Yearbook 2025 includes:

> GIGAPROJECTS INDEX: Gigaproject spending finds a level
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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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