02-09-08 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are likely to invest more than $ 320 bn by 2018 to develop oil, gas, power and petrochemical projects to meet burgeoning energy demands of their fast expanding economies, industry estimates show.
Research shows that most of the energy-related investments in the UAE would go towards building new utilities like power plants and cooling plants to meet the growing demands of the construction business.

According to the latest UAE official figures, by 2020, officials expect UAE electricity demand to exceed 40,800 MW, based on an annual growth rate of 9 % beginning in 2007. At present, almost 85 % of the country's 18,000 MW power capacity is generated from gas-based plants. The remaining capacity is generated from oil-fired plants.
Nearly all of the power generated in Dubai and Abu Dhabi comes from gas-fired plants.

Petrochemicals
Investment by GCC countries in the chemicals and petrochemicals sector is projected to reach $ 120 bn during thenext five years, figures from the Gulf Organisation for Industrial Consulting show.
GCC petrochemical production contributes nearly 7 % of the global petrochemical output at present.

"The Middle East countries have become major consumers of oil and gas themselves. In fact, the region's energy growth is next only to China. Any downstream capacity increase will certainly help meet the Middle East's demand growth," said Kate Dourian, Middle East Editor of Platts, a global energy information provider.
"The Gulf countries need major upstream, midstream and downstream energy investments to meet their high economic growth targets," said Dalton Garis, associate professor of Economics at Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute.