Libya has abruptly suspended its negotiations with Egypt on the establishment of a steam power station with a capacity of 1300 megawatts in Beni Suef, sources from within the Egyptian Ministry of Energy said. The ministry officials were stunned by having the negotiations stopped suddenly without reason.
Al-Masry Al-Youm learnt that the Libyans had contracted UAE Al-Waha Company that has Libyan investors to be a partner with the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company. The UAE was supposed to have a controlling interest exceeding 90% while the other 10% was supposed to be owned by the Egyptian company for operation and management. The UAE company was supposed to establish the station and own it through Libyan investments.
Sources close to the Libyans have attributed the suspension to the current world financial crisis, which pushed many Arab companies to postpone their projects at the present time. However, the official sources said that the Libyan side usually enters into negotiations for the establishment of joint ventures and then backtracks due to the lack of seriousness. The Libyan side had unilaterally cancelled an agreement signed by the Secretary of the Popular Committee for Energy with the Egyptian Minister of Electricity and Energy to establish power projects on the Libyan territories by a number of Egyptian companies at a value of LE1.5 billion. Egyptian companies are always complaining about the foreigners' control over the tenders put up by the government there to the extent that the Egyptian Petrojet Company sought the help of an Italian company so that it could win a tender for the construction of an oil pipeline. "Unfortunately, had we not sought the help of the Italian company, we would never have won the tender," Egyptian sources said.
