Muscat – Authority for Public Services Regulation (APSR) has stated that Monday’s electricity outage, which affected several governorates, was caused by a technical fault,  not a cyberattack, as rumours circulating on social media suggested.

The disruption began early Monday morning, leaving several – including Muscat, North Batinah, South Batinah and Dhahirah – without power. APSR immediately deployed specialised teams to restore supply, which was gradually reinstated with full restoration achieved by evening.

Speaking to Oman TV, Hilal al Ghaithi, spokesperson of APSR, explained that the outage occurred when one power generation station unexpectedly went offline, causing fluctuations in the national grid. “Preliminary investigations indicate this was purely a technical issue,” he said, describing claims of a cyberattack as “baseless and unfounded”.

Ghaithi added that the authority activated its emergency response plan after technical failure disrupted operations at one of the electricity distribution companies.

“The role of the authority is to conduct a thorough technical investigation into the cause of the outage,” he said. “If the investigation reveals any deficiencies on the part of licensed companies that impacted subscribers, APSR will take the necessary regulatory measures to safeguard the rights of the public.”

He also clarified that the fire reported in Ghala Industrial Area was unrelated to the outage. “These are separate incidents. The national grid remains stable, and all relevant agencies continue to monitor the situation closely.”

APSR has launched a comprehensive investigation to identify the precise cause of the outage and make recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future. The authority urged the public to rely solely on official sources for updates and avoid spreading unverified information.