POWER OUTAGES EXPECTED THIS SUMMER; WIDENING GAP

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 000273 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS FOR NEA/ARP, EB/ESC/IEC E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2017 TAGS: ENRG ECON KU SUBJECT: POWER OUTAGES EXPECTED THIS SUMMER; WIDENING GAP BETWEEN CONSUMPTION AND INVESTMENT REF: A. 06 KUWAIT 4532 ¶B. 06 KUWAIT 3720 ¶C. 06 KUWAIT 3469 Classified By: Acting DCM Tim Lenderking for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C/NF) Summary and Comment: In a 19 February meeting with Econoff, Suhaila Marafi, Director of Research at the Ministry of Energy (Electricity and Water) said she anticipated significant power outages this summer, which would likely worsen in 2008 and 2009. The Ministry has been scrambling to acquire additional sources of power, but it appears that these will come online too late to meet peak summer demand. Meanwhile, long-term investment in power infrastructure continues to be hampered by a tight construction market in the Gulf and a byzantine and corruption-laden government contracting regime in Kuwait. These problems affect Kuwait's ability to develop desalination plants, refining facilities, and commercial centers, in addition to power plants. There is little hope of reducing consumption since the Government subsidizes electricity prices and refuses to penalize citizens who ignore their bills. With the outlook for the power sector worsening, the Energy Minister has proposed spinning off Electricity and Water as a separate agency outside the scope of his Ministry. End Summary and Comment. Blackouts this summer; New generators too little, to late -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C/NF) On 19 February, Econoff met with Engineer Suhaila Marafi, Director of Studies and Research (effectively the Director of Planning),at the Electricity and Water Division of the Ministry of Energy. Marafi explained that despite the Ministry's intensive efforts to secure sources of additional electrical generating capacity prior to summer 2007 (ref A), there will definitely be power outages at times of peak consumption this summer. Even though 1200 MW of emergency generating capacity is being contracted and/or installed for this summer, most of the new equipment will not be online in time. Even if all of the generators were to come online before the summer, Marafi says supply would just barely meet peak demand of 9750 MW. Thus, as soon as any major component fails - an event which Marafi describes as inevitable - load-shedding will have to occur. The Ministry is devising a program for how load-shedding should be sequenced to minimize the impact on key infrastructure, the disruption of business operations, and the discomfort of important political constituents. (Note: Ref B describes the political fallout resulting from Kuwait's unprecedented rolling blackouts in the summer of 2006. End note.) ¶3. (C/NF) Marafi said the situation in summers 2008 and 2009 will be even worse as consumption continues to grow at an annual rate of 8-9% and major investment in the power sector continues to be delayed. According to Marafi, the Ministry has been so busy scrambling for solutions for this summer that it has yet to begin serious planning for 2008 and 2009. To obtain emergency power for this summer, the Ministry signed contracts in late January with three firms - Foster Jordan, Fouad Al-Ghanim, and ITH - to provide and install generator sets before 15 July. A contract for additional generators is expected to be signed with Kharafi National in the next few days. Marafi said that, in reality, the Ministry needs the generators up and running before 15 June, but the contracts had to be written with a deadline of 15 July to account for the time companies would need to deliver and install the equipment. Marafi thinks it unlikely that all of the generators will be up and running before even the 15 July deadline. She attributes the delays in contracting to the tight market for generators and construction in the region and the cumbersome bureaucracy of Kuwaiti government contracting. Greater investment needed. -------------- ¶4. (C/NF) Looking at long-term investment, the Ministry expects to sign a contract with Siemens shortly for an additional 1400 MW gas turbine installation at Kuwait's Sabiyya power plant. (Note: This contract had initially been awarded to GE, which had to renege after being abandoned by its partner, Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2006.) Additionally, in the next few weeks, the Ministry expects to re-tender contracts for the construction of a $2.9 billion 2500 MW power plant at Al-Zour North (AZN),which has been on the drawing board since 1996. The most recent AZN contract, KUWAIT 00000273 002 OF 002 which had to be scrapped in 2006 due to a lack of qualified bidders (Ref C),will be re-tendered as four separate component contracts with reduced liability for each of the individual contractors. Neither of these projects is expected to be up and running before summer 2009, but both will be crucial to meeting Kuwait's long-term power needs. No incentive to reduce consumption. -------------- ¶5. (C/NF) On the demand side of the electricity market, there seems to be no relief in sight. Electricity and water are heavily subsidized in Kuwait and there has been little call for conservation. The Energy Minister has recently proposed raising prices, but his proposal is unlikely to overcome resistance from populist Members of Parliament. Even if higher prices were to be approved, they would likely have little effect on consumption since Kuwaitis can effectively ignore their utility bills with impunity. The Ministry is prohibited by law from denying water or power to residential users. In order to persuade Kuwaitis to pay their outstanding power bills, an "amnesty" program is currently in effect whereby the Government has agreed to credit $7000 per household to citizens' outstanding electricity bills as long as they come forward before March 31 and pay whatever balance they owe in excess of this amount. Dysfunctional Bureaucracy -------------- ¶6. (C/NF) Marafi describes the Electricity and Water Division of the Ministry of Energy as "dysfunctional" and "badly in need of re-engineering." She says that many key posts are occupied by political appointees with little engineering expertise and poor management skills. At one point last year Electricity and Water had 14 Assistant Under Secretaries. Marafi complains that the different SIPDIS sub-organizations within the Ministry are poorly integrated and fail to coordinate effectively. The Minister of Energy has recently proposed spinning off Electricity and Water as a separate ministry (as it was until 2003 when it was consolidated with the Ministry of Oil to form the Energy Ministry) or as an independent agency. (Comment: It is unclear that such a division would have any significant impact on performance since the two parts of the Energy Ministry still operate largely as independent organizations with separate budgets and management structures. The division could, however, have the political effect of removing the Energy Minister from the line of fire as the power situation continues to worsen.) ********************************************* * For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/?cable s Visit Kuwait's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/ ********************************************* * TUELLER