Egypt wind farm bid attracts 72 international firmsA total of 72 international companies have expressed interested in a tender to build a 250-megawatt wind farm on Egypt s east coast, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday. The number which applied until last week reached 72 international companies, which shows confidence in the Egyptian economy, the agency quoted Electricity Minister Hassan Younes as saying. Egypt announced the tender for the wind farm on a build-operate-own (BOO) basis on May 9. Firms were invited to submit qualification documents by July 21 for short-listing. The project developer would be required to design, finance, construct, own and operate the power plant for 20 to 25 years, and would sell the power produced during that period to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company. Egypt, which is a gas and oil producer, has been developing wind power along its Red Sea coast in its east. It aims to generate 12 percent of its power from wind farms and a total of 20 percent from renewable sources by 2020. Officials say Egypt s combined oil and gas reserves will last the most populous Arab country for roughly three more decades, pushing the drive for more reliance on renewable energy. Egypt already has farms at Zafarana and Hurghada on the Red Sea coast. It has also said it wants to build several civilian nuclear power stations to help avoid an energy crunch. -Reuters Egypt mobile subscribers 45.6 mln at end of April The number of mobile subscribers in Egypt rose by 1 million to 45.587 million at the end of April compared with end-March, the government said on Tuesday. The country had 41.272 million subscribers at the start of the year, the government-run Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre said on its website (www.eip.gov.eg). Mobile subscribers in the most populous Arab country have been rising by roughly 1 million a month since February 2008. -Reuters UAE s FlyDubai gets GE financing for 4 planes DUBAI: Low-budget carrier FlyDubai said on Wednesday it had secured $320 million financing with General Electric for four Boeing 737 aircraft to be delivered this year. The sale and lease back agreement with GE s Capital Aviation Services unit covers two aircraft due for delivery in July, one in October and one in December, a statement said. FlyDubai, which currently has only two aircraft, said this was the first financing it had secured from outside the United Arab Emirates. FlyDubai will expand from 4 to 14 destinations with the purchases. The Dubai government-owned airline ordered 54 Boeing single-aisle 737 aircraft in a deal worth around $4 billion in November. - Reuters OPEC unlikely to hike output in Sept.: Kuwait OPEC is unlikely to raise oil output when its minister meet in September as the oil market is still oversupplied, Kuwait s oil minister said on Wednesday. I doubt there will be a further increase in production, Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah told reporters at parliament when asked for comment about similar views by fellow OPEC members about the September meeting. The minister said demand was still less than supply. Kuwait would like to see stricter compliance from OPEC members with agreed output curbs, Sheikh Ahmad said. I would like to see more compliance. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed cuts of 4.2 million barrels per day to supply last year to match the fall in global oil demand due to the recession. Last month, members delivered about 72 percent compliance rate, down from 75 percent in May of those cuts, according to a Reuters survey of oil firms, OPEC officials and analysts. OPEC pumps more than a third of the world s oil. - Reuters
