State-oil giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, is now allowed to sell its excess power capacity to the local market via Saudi Electricity Co. (5110.SA), the governor of the kingdom's Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority said Tuesday.

"The kingdom has been working on new regulations to allow Aramco and others to be sellers of electricity...and these rules have been already approved and are effective now," Abdullah al-Shehri told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview. "Aramco is already building its own power plants and will first sell its output to Saudi Electricity then directly to the market at a later stage."

Saudi Aramco, which is fully owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world with activities in exploration and production, refining, distribution, shipping and marketing.

The company produces 2,000 megawatts of electricity and buys 1,000 MW from Saudi electricity to meet its needs. It has previously said it plans to double its power-generating capacity to 4,000 MW by 2015 to supply all the electricity it needs to produce crude and natural gas.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia needs to invest about $150 billion in electricity over the next 10 years to meet rising domestic demand, the country's water and electricity minister Abdullah al-Hussayen said in January.

Power consumption in the member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could surge to 90,000 MW in 10 years from the current 52,000 MW, he said.

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