Saudi Arabia is key market for General Electric, says executive

Saudi Arabia is a promising energy market for General Electric Power’s investments, Mazin Albahkali, President and CEO, Power Services at GE Power told Argaam in an exclusive interview.

“We have been there for more than 70 years; the Kingdom is our main investment hub in the Middle East,” Albahkali added.

In 1976, GE built its first maintenance plant in Saudi Arabia, which was upgraded in 2010. The company also launched the second phase of its turbines project in 2015.

“We are looking forward to co-build power plants for the Saudi cement producers,” he noted.

Last year, GE Power entered into an agreement with Saudi Cement Co. to upgrade the latter’s three GE 6B gas turbines at Hofuf plant. This deal will enable Saudi Cement to boost power output by a total of up to 16.9 percent across the three turbines.

In 2018, GE was awarded a contract valued at nearly $1 billion for the engineering, construction and provision of gas turbine services for the Waad Al Shamal combined cycle power plant of Saudi Electricity Company (SEC).