GOGC financing building of $205 mln power plant in Georgia
TBILISI. Feb 21 (Interfax) - JSC Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC), wholly owned by JSC Partnership Fund, has kicked off a project for the building at the TbilGRES power plant in Gardabani, Georgia a $205 million combined-cycle installation with 230 mWt capacity, a GOGC statement says.
"JSC Partnership Fund (PF) has commenced construction of Gardabani CCPP. The estimated project cost is 205 million US Dollar. JSC Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) will use its Eurobond proceeds for funding the project. GOGC has already loaned 50 million US Dollar to PF for the advance payment to the contractor of the project, Calik Enerji. It is envisaged that the loan will be fully converted into equity holding (of GOGC) in Gardabani CCPP," the company said.
Construction should be completed in 2014, and commissioning is planned for 2015.
"As referred to the earlier announcement made on February 7, 2013 on putting on hold Namakhvani HPP, it is noteworthy that in case of the resumption of the Project, GOGC will not fund the Namakhvani HPP [hydropower plant] construction," the company said.
GOGC announced this month that the building of the 450 mWt Namakhvani hydropower cascade on the river Rioni in western Georgia, which was scheduled to start in the first half of this year, has been put off. At the recommendation of international consultants, it has been decided to conduct additional geological and hydrological research for more detailed designing of the cascade, and to prepare more comprehensive evaluations of the project's environmental impact. Those studies should be completed in the second half of this year.
In January 2012, GOGC founded subsidiary JSC Cascade Namakhvani GES to work out the project for building three hydropower plants on the river. Two of them - Tvishi GES and Zhoneti GES, with 100 mWt capacity each - were to be built using the proceeds from a five-year debut bond issue placement on the London Stock Exchange to the tune of $250 million. The third - Namakhvani GES (250 mWt) - was to be built using private investments.
The total project price tag is $800 million. Construction will take five years.
GOGC was set up in March of 2006 with the merger of JSC Georgian Oil International Corporation, JSC Georgian Gas International Corporation, and JSC Gruzneft. Its main line of business is searching out and extracting oil and gas and transporting them, designing, building, and operating trunk oil and gas pipelines.
JSC Partnership Fund was created by the Georgian government in June of 2011 to act as a financier for strategically important investment projects. The fund's assets include stock in major state energy and transport companies.
