West Australian
Wednesday 25/2/2009 Page: 54
The future of two WA power stations formerly owned by Babcock and Brown Power has been resolved, with partner ERM Power temporarily taking full control of its Kwinana joint venture and ANZ's infrastructure arm picking up BBP's share of its other plant in Neerabup, 30km north of Perth. The troubled investment bank's offshoot announced in November that the ANZ had offered $130 million to buy its interests in both power stations.
At the time BBP was struggling under a mountain of debt and looking to offload assets to survive. However, ERM - the biggest private power company in Australia - had a pre-emptive right to buy BBP's share in each venture. In a complicated set of transactions, The West Australian understands that ERM has exercised its right to buy BBP's 30% in the gas-fired NewGen Kwinana power station, with the aim of on-selling that share to an unknown partner. ERM will retain its 70% stake after the deal is done, expected to be in March.
The Kwinana plant had teething problems in its commissioning phase, including a turbine failing and not having enough test gas because of the Varanus Island explosion, but the company still managed to hit its target start-up date of December 1 last year. Farther north, ANZ's infrastructure group has bought BBP's 50% share in the Neerabup operation, leaving ERM, as before, with the remaining half.
An ANZ spokesman confirmed yesterday it had bought BBP's interest on behalf of its Energy Infrastructure Trust. EIT's portfolio includes steam and gas power stations, gas pipelines, biodiesel fuel plants and windfarms. NewGen Neerabup is a 320MW open-cycle, gasfired power station. It is due for completion late this year, when it is projected to supply just under 10% of the electricity needs of the South-West grid.
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