PEP to spend EUR 300 million on wind power

Some 80% of the sum will come from bank loans. "The management board has no plans of issuing new shares," said PEP president Richard Klein. The company's strategy envisages starting three new industrial energy outsourcing projects and producing 250 MWs of power from wind energy over the next five years. Grzegorz Skarżyński, PEP's deputy president, estimates that each of the outsourcing projects will consume from EUR 20 to 40 million, while the construction of a 1 MW wind farm costs over EUR 1 million. The first farm (producing 22 MWs) will start operating at the beginning of 2007. On Friday, PEP signed a contract with German Gamesa Wind, as general contractor. Yesterday, the firm's management board upheld the prognosis of zł.9 million net profit for 2005, and confirmed that the whole sum will be spend on dividends. The company also declared it intends to increase dividends payouts over the next few years by at least 10% per year. (Parkiet, p. 5) A.F.