SEC subscribers rise by 2.8m since 2000

Customers of the Saudi Electricity Company rose to 6.341 million last year from 3.5 million since the company was established in 2000, up by 80.2 percent, according to the company\'s 2011 Annual Report released today. From a total of 7,406 electrified towns, villages and settlements in 2000, the figure those to 12,256 in 2011, up by 65.4 percent. For the year 2011 alone, electricity service was delivered to 363,318 new customers and 266 villages and settlements. Power generation capacity rose to 51,148 megawatt in 2011 from 24,083 megawatt in 2000, or an increase of 124 percent, and transmission network lines went up from 29,166 circular kilometers in year 2000 to 49,675 circular kilometers in 2011, up 70 percent. In terms of human resources, SEC reported a total work force of 28,414, of which 22,983 or 87.52 percent were regular Saudi employees, up from 73.2 percent in 2000. Non-Saudi employees accounted for only 3,545 or 12.47 percent, and the rest of the work force included 1,107 on-the-job trainees and 779 university graduates. \"During the past eleven years, the Company has completed 96% of the national plan for interconnecting the national network with the extra-high voltage 380 KV network which resulted in power being supplied to the entire regions of the Kingdom through the power transmission network,\" said Chief Executive Officer Ali Ibn Al-Barrack in the report. Al-Barrack stressed that \"the company has established its relations with its partners based on fairness and transparency and encouraged the national industries as well.\" As a result, he said, SEC\'s purchases from the national industries in the field of electricity rose to SR 6 billion or 90 percent of the company’s total purchases. \"The company further provided open opportunities to the private sector urging them to participate in the company’s electricity projects with investments amounting to SR 28 billion to generate a capacity of 7 thousand MW,\" he added. Saleh Ibn Hussein Al-Awajji, chairman of the Board of Directors, said in a statement contained in the annual report that SEC paid cash dividends amounting to SR 547 million to individual shareholders, equivalent to 7 percent of the total share value of the company. The shareholders’ dividends amounted to SR 306 million for the fiscal years 2000 - 2001, he said. Arabnews