Maharashtra for revival of Enron power plant

Thursday, 12 February 2004, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has said his government was working towards restarting the mothballed Dabhol Power Corporation (DPC) power plant promoted by the now-defunct US energy major Enron Corporation. Shinde told reporters here that the government-owned Maharashtra State Electricity Board, a part-owner of DPC, was in touch with financial institutions to examine whether the power plant could be restarted. Shinde said a new committee would be set up to work out the pricing of power. The state government is looking at a price of 2.80 per unit and said it would not be able to pay anything higher than this. It is still not clear whether any Indian petroleum major would be interested in the project. The $3 billion Enron project went into a limbo after the Maharashtra State Electricity Board declared its inability to pay for the power, saying it was too costly. Enron, along with its partners General Electric and Bechtel, together originally owned 85 per cent of the Dabhol Power Corporation project, with the MSEB holding the rest. The DPC plant has been shut for more than two years now. Enron's DPC has a capacity of 2,184 MW of power once both its phases are completed. Till it was shut, the first phase of the plant was operational while the second was nearing completion.
Source: IANS