Oman's cabinet is considering changing electricity tariffs to save the government money which it spends on subsidies, a senior official said on Wednesday. Qais al-Zakwani, executive director of the Authority for Electricity Regulation, told Reuters that the proposed change would affect commercial, industrial and government users of electricity consuming over 150 megawatt hours annually - between 9,000 and 9,500 consumers in total. The change would save the government up to 7 or 8% of its bill for electricity price subsidies. Such subsidies totalled around OMR450 million (USD1.17 billion) last year - and that figure is an understatement as the government is also selling natural gas used for power generation at a subsidised rate, Zakwani said. End-consumers of electricity in Oman are only paying about half of the cost of generating it, he added. (Reuters)