TNB, Khazanah May Bid for Viet, Mid-East Deals

By Sharen Kaur

POWER producer Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) and its major shareholder, Khazanah Nasional Bhd, may bid for contracts to transmit power in Vietnam and the Middle East.

“We are now busy with the US$2.65 billion (RM9.04 billion) power and water desalination privatisation project in Saudi Arabia, which we expect to complete by August 2008. It is currently 43 per cent completed,” TNB president and chief executive officer Datuk Che Khalib Mohamad Noh said yesterday.

TNB may also bid for a transmission project in Kuwait.

“The contract value is less than US$1 billion. (RM3.41 billion) The plan is still in the preliminary stages,” Che Khalib said after presenting achievement awards to the company’s safety and environmental divisions in Putrajaya.

He declined to give more details on the project.

Last year, TNB, in a venture with Khazanah and Malakoff Bhd, won the contract for Saudi Arabia’s first power and water desalination privatisation project.

Che Khalib said the venture was confident it would be able to hand over the project to the Saudi Government in early 2009, after running several tests on the plant.

“TNB is the first mega independent power producer in Saudi Arabia, and it will also be a major power provider to Mecca and Jeddah,” he added.

The plant will be able to supply 900 megawatts of electricity and one million cubic metres of desalinated water a day.

(c) 2007 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.