Power-Supply Study Completed for a Chinese Group's Project in Safaga's Golden Triangle, Trade Outlet Reports

Egypt's electricity authorities have completed the power-supply study for a Chinese group's project inside the Golden Triangle economic zone at Safaga, the trade newspaper Power News reported on 8 September. The Arabic report names the investor as a Chinese group rendered as Hubei Sheng-Fa; Hurghada News has not been able to confirm the company's registered English name.

A supply study is the stage at which the network works out where a new industrial site's electricity will come from and what has to be built to deliver it — the connection point, the lines and the substation capacity. Completing it is what allows construction and equipment orders to be planned against a firm power source. It is not, by itself, a start of works.

The Golden Triangle is the state economic zone that links the Red Sea ports of Safaga and El Quseir with Qena in the Nile Valley, and it has been promoted to investors as a mining and heavy-industry hub. Safaga, about an hour's drive south of Hurghada, is the zone's main port outlet.

The report gives no further detail. It carries:

• no investment value
• no description of what the Chinese group intends to build
• no capacity figure in megawatts
• no construction timetable and no named contractor
• no date for when power would actually be connected

For Safaga, the significance is in the direction of travel rather than in the announcement itself. Each project that reaches the power-supply stage brings the zone closer to the industrial employment it was created to generate, and adds another large customer to the coastal grid. For visitors, nothing changes in the short term: the zone sits inland and away from the resort strip.