KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia, (Reuters) – Saudi Electricity has given approval to award 7.64 billion riyals ($2.03 billion) worth of contracts out of 80 billion riyals it plans to spend by 2012 to boost capacity, the company said on Wednesday.

It did not give details of the projects it would award in a statement on the Saudi bourse website but said its generation capacity would increase by around 13,000 megawatt.

Saudi Electricity (SEC) currently produces around 37,000 MW.

SEC, the Gulf’s largest utility firm by market value said in June it would issue Islamic bonds that could be worth about 5 billion riyals to help it fund expansion.