ČEZ, RWE and "Edison" remained in race for construction of power plants

- Energy companies ČEZ from Czech Republic, "Edison" from Italy and RWE from Germany have remained in the competition for strategic partners of "Electric Power Company of Serbia" (EPS) in construction of steam power plants - that public company announced today (December 2nd, 2009).

The Director General of public company EPS, Dragomir Marković, said that the offers for construction of Steam Power Plant "Nikola Tesla B3" of 700 MW were being prepared by ČEZ, "Edison" and RWE, while the first two companies remained in the tender procedure for construction of "Kolubara B".

Marković said at the press conference that other qualified participants in the tenders had given up because of the global financial crisis.

German "Energy Baden-Wirtemberg" (EnBW) and American AES have given up the tender for construction of "Kolubara B", with two blocks of 350 MW each, and the tender for construction of the third block in Steam Power Plant "Nikola Tesla B".

The Director General of EPS announced that the deadline for submission of bids on the tenders would be extended until April or May 2010 at the request of potential bidders. He added that it was justified due to the projects' complexity.

- We expect strategic partners to be selected prior to June 2010, which should be followed by signing of the contracts - said Marković.

He pointed out that those projects did not represent the privatization of EPS. New power plants will be independent manufacturers of electricity, and EPS will have minority share in them.

Marković said that 15 bids had been submitted on the tender for modernization and construction of Steam Power Plant-Heating Plant "Novi Sad", and that the bids would be opened on Friday, December 4th. He also expressed the expectation that strategic partners would be selected before July 2010.

According to some earlier information, construction of steam power plants "Kolubara B" and "Nikola Tesla B3" represents the investment worth about 1.6 billion EUR, and about 250m EUR should be invested in the combined power plant in Novi Sad, which is powered by gas.