KHOBAR, (Reuters) – State-controlled Saudi Electricity Co has set Feb. 28 as a deadline for companies to bid for the gas-fired al-Qurayyah power plant, a company executive said on Saturday.

Al-Qurayyah, south of the eastern city of Khobar, would have a power generation capacity in the range of 1,800 to 2,100 megawatts, and is estimated to cost $1.8 billion, said Amer al-Swaha, head of Independent Power Producer (IPP) projects.

The plant is the third of six planned IPP projects, which involve the private sector, that would add around 11,000 megawatts of capacity.

Saudi Electricity will buy all the power produced by the plant from the winning consortium, which will run it on a build-own-operate basis.

“We have completed the pre-qualification process of 14 bidders and issued the request for proposals on Wednesday,” Swaha told Reuters.

“It (the project) is expected to be fully operational on June 1, 2014 … Aug. 31, 2011 (is) the financial close,” Swaha said.

The plant, Qurayyah IPP1 would use 300 million cubic feet per day of gas (cfd) to generate electricity. The plant had previously been expected to use heavy fuel oil as a feedstock.

“We have a future plan for Qurayyah IPP2,” Swaha said, adding the company would expand the number of planned IPP projects to meet rising power needs.

Demand for electricity in the desert country is rising at an annual rate of 8 percent and is expected to triple to 121,000 MW by 2032.

SEC plans to invest $80 billion to boost capacity to at least 70,000 MW by 2020 from an installed capacity of 50,000 MW now.

The private sector is contributing to adding capacity through IPPs. It is spending $24 billion, or around 30 percent of Saudi Electricity’s spending programme.

Below is a list of companies bidding as lead developers for the plant, as stated by SEC on its website:

– Saudi ACWA Power Projects

– AES Corporation in an alliance with Saudi Masader Company for Water and Power

– General Electric

– International Power Plc

– Korea Electric Power Corporation

– Japan’s Marubeni Corp

– Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp

– Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Ltd

– Saudi National Power Co in an alliance with Abu Dhabi National Energy Co

– Malaysia’s Powertek Berhad in a consortium with Saudi Oger Ltd.

– UK’s Sembcorp Utilities Pte Ltd

– Suez-Tractebel

– Japan’s Sumitomo Corp

– Malaysia’s Tenaga Nasional Berhad and Saudi Binladin Group