State upstream firm Oman Oil Company (OOC) has signed a partnership agreement with Thailand’s Gulf Energy Development to build a gas-fired power plant and linked desalination unit to supply the planned 230,000 b/d Duqm refinery on the Arabian Sea coast of central Oman. OOC says the plant will have capacity to generate 326MW of electricity and desalinate 40,000m³/d of water. OOC has not announced a start-up date for the plant, but it will be ahead of completion of the refinery, estimated at around mid-2022 at best. The DRPIC joint venture of OOC and Kuwait’s KPI are jointly developing the refinery, initially with a view to exporting refined products to Asia and later integrating petrochemicals production. The refinery will be a key project in an economic zone envisaged at Duqm, which Muscat hopes will help diversify the national economy (MEES, 31 August).