EdF/EnBW consortium for 35% stake in Rybnik plant

Poland’s State Treasury said on Tuesday that it had picked a consortium of France’s state energy giant Electricite de France (EdF) and Germany’s Energie Baden Württemberg (EnBW) to buy up to 35% stake in Poland’s third-largest power plant El Rybnik. The group, which already controls combined-heating-and-power plant Kogeneracja, was chosen over Belgian Tractebel and a consortium of NRG Energy and Japan’s Marubeni, which also placed bids. Rybnik, which produced eight million megawatt hours of energy in 1999, controls about 7% of the market and is finally being privatized after talks with NRG and Marubeni broke down late last year. Meanwhile, 49 entities including Elektrim, Tractebel, EdF, E-ON and RWE received information memoranda about privatization of Northern Poland’s energy distributors called G-8. The winner will be chosen by the third quarter of the year. According to Dariusz Libera from the Polish Association of Transfer and Distribution of Energy (PiREE), investors taking part in privatization of the sector should bring not only capital injection, but also know-how about free-market energy trade. (Reuters, Prawo i Gospodarka, pp.1,2) M.M.