RIYADH, 24 August 2006 — Industries in Saudi Arabia will be hit by a two-hour power-cut daily following the failure of a power sub-station in the Eastern Province, announced a top official of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) here yesterday. Industries will experience two-hour power cuts daily, any time between 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Ali ibn Saleh Al-Barrak, SEC’s acting executive president, said here yesterday that the power outage would start with immediate effect because of a major power disruption, which occurred last Friday.

“Industrial units of the Central and Eastern Provinces will be affected by the power cuts,” said Al-Barrak, while explaining the reasons of the power shortage in these two regions.

He said that “SEC has been trying to restore power and ensure normal supply as early as possible, while the repairing works at the faulty power generation/supply unit was in progress.”

“The SEC, however, is expecting to restore normal power supply by the end of the next week,” said the SEC in a statement released here yesterday.

Referring to the information given to the consumers and the officials in these two provinces about the power outage, he said that the concerned officials had already been intimated about cuts.

Al-Barrak said that “the decision to cut power had been taken to avoid black-outs in residential areas and in vital public utilities like hospitals and educational institutions. The examination of students and the gradual return of Saudi and expatriates after summer vacation were other factors influencing the decision to cut power.”

He said that the problem in the Eastern Province had led to the loss of 630MW of power.

“To lessen the load on the supply following this problem, several other measures have also been taken,” said the SEC, while hoping to fix the problem speedily and efficiently within a few days.

At the moment, the total number of electricity subscribers exceeds 4.7 million in Saudi Arabia, where more than 10,160 cities, towns and villages have been electrified. It has been predicted that the power supply will cover all settlements and villages not previously supplied with electricity by 2008, raising the number of electrified cities and villages to 11,112. This will be a record achievement keeping in view the 5.4 percent yearly growth rate of power consumption.

A total of 24 percent of power output is consumed by industrial sector of Saudi Arabia, while two percent is used by agriculture sector.