Work on the multibillion-dollar GCC power grid project, which is to link the six-member states of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council with an integrated electricity network by the year 2010, will start in September this year. Dr. Saleh Alawaji, chairman of the GCC Interconnection Authority (GCCIA), and Saudi deputy minister for electricity affairs, said tenders for the project's first phase, which will cost $1.2 billion, would be opened in April and May. He said the project, which is to reduce the cost of power generation in the six GCC states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, would be carried out in three phases. GCCIA's board of directors held a meeting in Abu Dhabi last Thursday and discussed matters related to the project.
