RIYADH - A senior electricity official pledged yesterday to maintain an uninterrupted electricity supply, saying Wednesday's power outage will not hit residential or industrial areas in Saudi Arabia again this summer.
Power went out on Wednesday for several hours in many cities in four provinces in the central and eastern regions of Saudi Arabia.
Saleh Mohammed Al-Onaizan, acting CEO of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), said that the SEC was currently on an expansion course with ambitious plans to ensure full electrification of all Saudi cities and villages by 2010.
"The SEC has already fixed the faults at a few power plants in different cities and towns, including the industrial city of Jubail, Hail, Qassim and Riyadh, which were hit by power blackouts," said Al-Onaizan. Power was fully restored by about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in all parts of the country.
"The SEC had been trying to restore power and ensure a normal supply as early as 5 p.m. on Wednesday while the repair works at the faulty power units were in progress," said Al-Onaizan.
"This was an accidental outage. The SEC always gives advance notice of power cuts, if and when required," he said.
Alex Adrino, a spokesman of the Jubail-based Samsung Engineering, said his company lost power at about 3 p.m. and saw the supply restored about three hours later.
Arif Ali, a technician working with a contracting company, said power went out at about 2:30 p.m. in Dammam, affecting among other things businesses and traffic lights.
"The blackout continued late into evening, which created a lot of pain and problems for children," said Ali. "Many Saudis and residents left their homes in search of cool places to stay until the problem was solved."
Saleem Therkandy, who lives with his family in Buraidah, said that he experienced a minutes-long blackout yesterday, a day after the hours-long, multi-province blackout.
A spokesman of Riyadh Cables said that the Riyadh Industrial Area did not experience any power outages on Wednesday or yesterday.
The state-controlled SEC is the Kingdom's largest power generator and distributor of electricity. It has recently agreed to an SR6-billion Shariah-compliant loan with a group of six local banks to refinance maturing debt and help pay for new projects.
The company spent SR13.5 billion on expansion projects last year alone, according to an SEC statement.
It has also signed an agreement for a multi-billion-riyal turnkey contract to build a new 1,200 megawatt steam power plant.
By Ghazanfar Ali Khan
Arab News 2008
