Dr. Hassan Younis, Egypt's Minister of Electricity and Energy, said two international companies put forward their bids to provide advisory services for the design of the electricity link project between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He affirmed that this was a "pivotal step" towards implementing this huge project, and that it would be operational by 2012. Speaking to the press following his meeting yesterday with Dr. Abdullah Al-Husseiny, Saudi Minister of Water and Electricity, he said the mutual capacity of this 500-kW link line was expected to be as high as 3,000 MW later on. He pointed out that by linking the electricity systems of these two countries, 98% of the electricity system in the Arab world was now linked. Egypt is indeed connected with Syria, Jordan, Libya and Lebanon, and is expected to do the same with Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. As for Saudi Arabia, it is linked to the Gulf countries and Yemen. The Egyptian Minister of Electricity said that technical and economic studies proved that the project would benefit development plans in both countries.
