Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Pcl said it planned to spend 12 billion baht ($390 million) next year on continuing investments and new ventures, including power plants in Myanmar’s Dawei project.
The country’s largest private power producer signed an agreement with Italian-Thai Development Pcl to build coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts at Dawei in Myanmaer, President Noppol Milinthanggoon told reporters.
Noppol said Ratchaburi would have a 30 percent stake in the project, while Italian-Thai will hold the other 70 percent.
In late 2010, Italian-Thai signed an $8 billion contract with Myanmar for a port and infrastructure project in Dawei in the Tanintharyi region in Myanmar’s south.
Noppol said they would build three small power plants with combined capacity of 400 megawatts in the first phase. Construction is expected to begin next year and be completed in 2014, with investment of $2 million per megawatt.
The remaining 3,600 MW would be gradually built in two phases with three 600-MW power plants each and it needed investment of $1.5 million per megawatt, Noppol said.
Ratchaburi, like other major Thai utilities, is looking for growth opportunities abroad to boost capacity and has said power plants in Laos, Australia and the Philippines were targets.
In August, it said it planned to raise its holding in Australia’s Transfield Services Infrastructure Fund to 68.1 percent by the end of this year.
The utility expected its installed capacity to rise to 5,180 MW by the end of 2011 due to new, 830 megawatt capacity and the number would rise to 6,660 MW, it said.
Ratchaburi is 45 percent owned by state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, the country’s sole power buyer.
On Monday, the company posted a 1.95 percent drop in third-quarter net profit to 1.23 billion baht. Its nine-month net profit rose 1.7 percent to 4.32 billion baht.
It expected higher 2011 net profit than last year thanks to additional power plants but earnings would also depend on power usage in the fourth quarter after flooding in Thailand, Noppol said.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/14/ratchaburi-idUSL3E7ME0TJ20111114
