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To: BigBull who wrote (48148)	7/19/1999 3:18:00 AM
From: articwarrior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Time for more gas powered plants? INTERVIEW-Australia's Tarong eyes gas power plant By Diana Taylor BRISBANE, July 19 (Reuters) - Power generator Tarong Energy said on Monday it was considering building a 700 megawatt gas-fired power station at Wivenhoe in southwest Queensland, but was not at a contract signing stage for gas from Papua New Guinea. ''We have a live interest in building a gas station at Wivenhoe, with feasibility studies well advanced,'' Tarong Energy chairman Ken Dredge told Reuters. He had been asked to comment on media reports that Tarong was close to signing a deal to become the first customer for the supply of gas to be piped from PNG. Dredge said the evaluation would be finalised in the next three months and would then be presented to the board and the Queensland state government for approval. He said the company had been talking to a number of gas suppliers including Energex, which heads a consortium for customers seeking to source gas from a A$3 billion Papua New Guinea pipeline proposed by a Chevron Corp (NYSE:CHV - news)-led group. Both Tarong and Energex are owned by the Queensland government. But Dredge said no firm agreement had been reached. "We have certainly been in talks but I don't know if we would be the first customer (for the PNG pipeline) -- our plans are still the subject of study," he said. "We happen to have a very attractive site at Wivenhoe with all the infrastructure needed to set up a gas facility, the main powerlink for the sub-station already in place and a number of permits needed. ''We've been looking at gas for both Tarong and Wivenhoe for over a year and there needs to be some further work over the next two to three months before we could make any firm decisions to commit.'' The Queensland government is currently evaluating another proposal by Tarong Energy for a 900mw upgrade of its existing 1400mw coal-fired facility at Tarong North, northwest of Brisbane, which could be completed within 3- years. Dredge said overall plans were to take power generating capacity to 3000mw, including 2300mw coal-fired and 700mw gas-fired, which would put Tarong Energy in a strong position. ''We are well advanced and our situation is fairly much organised. We would be in a good position to go ahead quickly if the evaluation was positive,'' Dredge said. ''We are in a good position to resolve things absolutely in the not too distant timeframe.'' He said initial evaluation showed it was more beneficial to set up a gas-fired power generator at Wivenhoe than at Tarong. ''We are close to the main market and therefore there are lower transmission losses and gas operations are highly versatile, with the ability to modulate generation for greater flexibility in handling peak consumption,'' he said.