The Egyptian Electricity Transmission (EETC) intends to postpone the opening of the technical and financial envelopes presented by companies for the tender of the Egyptian-Saudi electrical interconnection cables project and transformers to next month. Sources at EETC said that opening the envelopes was scheduled for this Monday, but has been delayed on the back of some companies asking for more clarification on some items. The winning company will establish a 450-km air-transmitter line from Badr City transformer station to Nabq station, as well as an 850km long aero transmission line between Nabq station through Tabuk transformers to East Madina station. The sources also noted that opening the envelopes for the transformers station has also been postponed from 23 January to the coming month. The company to win this contract will establish two 500kV AC/DC transformer stations in Badr City and another linking station to connect to the aero line in Nabq. Sources pointed out that the project has been under negotiations since 2008 and was postponed to 2011. However, the political unrest in Egypt kept the contracts away from reaching final agreements. In 2014, the government resumed the project and posed several tenders. Prysmian Group had earlier won a tender for the Egyptian-Saudi electrical interconnection cables project. The results have been sent to Saudi officials. Prysmian will connect two switch stations in Egypt and Saudi Arabia in addition to a submarine cable of 500 kV that is to cross the Gulf of Aqaba at a length of 16km. The operation of the electric interconnection project with Saudi Arabia will start a trial period in 2019 to exchange 3,000 MW at peak time. The project costs about $1.6bn, with the Egyptian side amounting to $600m. The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Islamic Development Bank, and the resources of EETC, will contribute to the project's funding along with the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development.
