Bahrain company denies blame for power blackout

Bahrain's national aluminium smelter, Alba, has denied that it was responsible for the nationwide power blackout, which caused around 10 million dinars (about $26.5 million) in damages and left most of the country without electricity power for more than ten hours.

Alba was blamed by the Ministry of Electricity for the unprecedented outage. The ministry said the surge of 400 megawatts from the smelter's network to the state's grid was responsible for the blackout.

But Alba's chief executive Bruce Hall in a letter to the Minister of Oil refuted the allegation and recommended disconnecting the current link between the Alba power plant and the national grid, keeping the two systems separated until March 2005 when a new and 'more reliable' connection is installed.

"Alba is an aluminium producer, but as part of the strategy to support the government in sourcing its electrical energy, the company supplies the Ministry of Electricity and Water with a specific amount of power when needed," he said.

He added that Alba was investigating the incident and that it was cooperating with a probe panel setup by the ministry.

The writer is an Arab journalist based in Bahrain