The local Arabian Bemco Contracting Company is the low bidder for the Al-Qurayyah combined-cycle power plant project in Eastern Province Saudi Arabia, with a

bid of $1.85bn.

The client, Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), opened the commercial bids for Al-Qurayyah on 13 June.

Two other prices were submitted for the engineering, procurement and construction contract. A team of Marubeni Corporation Japan with Daelim Engineering & Construction South Korea bid $1.87bn, while Hyundai Heavy Industries, also of South Korea, bid the most with $1.97bn.

The winning bidder will convert the Al-Qurayyah simple-cycle power plant, which Bemco is building under a separate contract, into a combined-cycle plant by adding five steam turbines to the facility, with a total capacity of 1,000MW a year.

Combined-cycle plants generate more electricity from the same amount of gas than simple-cycle plants, making them more efficient. The conversion will bring the total capacity of the plant to nearly 3,000MW a year by 2011.

Bemco won the SR2.1bn ($560m) contract for the construction of the simple-cycle plant in June 2007 and is expected to finish the work in August 2009.

The June 2007 contract involves the installation, testing, and commissioning of 15 gas turbines each with a capacity of 127MW.