Austrian OMV to build Turkish CCGT by Blue Stream pipe terminal
Austrian oil and gas incumbent OMV has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire 60% of the Turkish Borasco Elektrik company, following approval by the European Commission earlier this month (see ESGM 14.161) and the Turkish regulator EMRA.
Borasco Elektrik is set to build an 890 MW gas-fired power plant in the port city of Samsun on the Black Sea coast, and will sell the produced electricity on the Turkish market, a company statement read.
Construction of the EUR 500 million plant is scheduled to begin this year, with an expected start-up date of late 2010. The plant location is beside the Blue Stream gas pipeline terminal, which brings Russian gas to Turkey via a subsea pipeline under the Black Sea. OMV would not confirm that a gas supply deal for the plant was already in place, but a spokesperson told ICIS Heren: “OMV is not a company to build power plants without being sure to have the relevant supply”. The proximity to the Blue Stream terminal was described as “an essential factor for a safe gas supply” by OMV.
Werner Auli, OMV Executive Board member responsible for Gas and Power, said in a statement on Thursday: “The entry into the Turkish market is another important step in terms of the use of natural gas for power generation. The Turkish electricity market has a strong growth rate of around 10% per year.”
The Turkish plant is the latest deal which sees the Austrian oil and gas company push into gas-fired electricity generation. OMV has a controlling stake in Romanian Petrom, which plans to build an 860 MW gas-fired power plant at the Petrom refinery in Petrobrazi, Romania. OMV is also planning a gas-fired power plant in Haiming, Germany.
OMV (via its wholly-owned subsidiary OMV Power International) owns 60% of Borasco Elektrik. Its other partners are Turcap Investments, a subsidiary of the bank Lehman Brothers (25%), and Metcap Enerji Yatirimlari San ve Tic (15%), which is controlled by Celal Metin a Turkish industrialist. JA
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