Saudi Electricity seeks Aramco help

Saudi Electricity Co. needs state oil firm Aramco to invest in more gas exploration and fuel pipelines to avoid the power outages that hit the world’s top oil exporter last year, a document obtained by Reuters showed.

The document, authored by a Saudi Electricity technical committee, said one of the biggest challenges facing the struggling utility was transporting fuel from oil refineries to power plants during the summer peak demand period.


The committee said the high proportion of Saudi nationals in the company’s workforce was hurting productivity and encouraged an early retirement scheme that would cut the total workforce by at least 17 % over five years.

The state-run firm, the Gulf’s largest utility by market value, had to ration power last summer to firms in the Riyadh and Eastern provinces, the kingdom’s main industrial hubs.

Reuters