Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) expects to double its investments in the next five years to meet the growing demand for electricity in the Kingdom, a top company executive said in an interview with a television network.
SEC’s Senior Vice President-Finance and Chief Financial Officer Abdulaziz Al-Muhaiza said that the company’s capital investments in the past three years exceeded 30 billion Saudi riyals ($8 billion).
The Tadawul-listed company will invest in the modernization of its generation equipment and transmission and distribution networks and in digitization to enhance efficiency and improve services, he said during the interview on the sidelines of the seventh annual Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh.
He said SEC spent SAR 28 to 35 billion ($7.5 billion to $9.3 billion) over the past three years in modernizing its transmission and distribution network.
Al-Muhaiza said the company intends rely more on free cash flow than on loans to finance its projects for 2024 and beyond due to concerns over high interest rates but didn’t completely rule out tapping the debt market through bonds, sukuks and loans.
He said the company's free cash flow ranges between SAR 10 billion and SAR 20 billion ($2.7 billion and $5.3 billion).
The SEC executive also disclosed that SEC has signed an agreement with four banks, comprising three regional and one local, for raising $3 billion over a period of five years.
