Asem Elgawhary remembers when Nubaria was just a dusty site. “There was nothing there,” he says. “Just sand.” Today, a vibrant city lives.
The difference: a 1,500-megawatt power plant built by PGESCo, Bechtel’s joint venture with Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy. The plant employs as many as 800 people. “When you build a project like that,” says Elgawhary, “a lot of infrastructure goes in. You create a community around it, with schools and stores.”
Elgawhary, PGESCo’s general manager, had seen similar results earlier in his career, half a world away. He recalls Bechtel’s construction of power plants in Grand Gulf, Mississippi, in the 1970s. “There was nothing there, and now there are multiple communities around the site,” he says.
The first two generating units at Nubaria were completed in 2006 (a third 750-megawatt unit is scheduled for completion in early 2010). The efficiency with which the plant was built has made it a showcase project for PGESCo.
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