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Gold/Mining/Energy : Lundin Oil (LOILY, LOILB Sweden) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tomas who wrote (1296)	9/7/1999 4:55:00 AM
From: Greywolf	Respond to of 2742

PNG Gas pipeline closes down coal project, Brisbane, Australia, Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Entergy Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. electricity generator, is shutting down its Australian operations after pulling out of a proposedA$1.4 billion (US$900 million) power plant development in Queensland state. The New Orleans-based utility last November sold its biggest Australian asset, the CitiPower electricity distribution company in Victoria state, to American Electric Power Co. for A$1.7 billion. The decision to pull out of its remaining project, a joint venture with state-owned Tarong Energy, came after the U.S. head office became tired of waiting for the Queensland government to approve the 900 megawatt expansion of the Tarong coal-fired power station. ``It's very economically viable, but the government has to remove the uncertainty from it,' said Bill Ford, managing director of Entergy's Australian operations. The company will now shut the Sydney office where Ford is based. The state government's potential support for a US$3.5 billion plan to pipe natural gas to Queensland from Papua New Guinea creates a risk of too much competition from generators fired by that gas, he said. With the withdrawal from the Tarong plant, ``Entergy has elected to refocus its activities in fewer areas in the world,' said Ford. The main targets will be the U.S. and Europe. Last year, Entergy closed its Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore offices, and the latest pullout virtually completes the U.S. company's exit from Asia, he said. Queensland, which less than two years ago suffered power blackouts due to generator breakdowns, is now facing an oversupply of electricity if all proposed power projects go ahead. Power Projects InterGen, a joint venture between Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Bechtel Group Inc., has won approval to build an A$1.4 billion coal-fired 840 megawatt electric power plant in Millmerran, about 200 kilometers west of Brisbane, the state capital. The Consolidated Electric Power Asia Ltd. unit of Southern Co., the largest publicly traded U.S. power producer, is close to receiving state approval for A$1 billion, 600 megawatt to 800 megawatt power station it plans to build next to its Kogan Creek coal mine, west of Brisbane. Shell Coal Pty, a unit of Royal Dutch/Shell, and CS Energy, a state-owned generating company, are expected to complete construction of a A$800 million, 840 megawatt, expansion of the Callide coal-fired power plant around the end of 2001. CS Energy and Tarong Energy are both among the companies proposing power plants fired by gas from the Papua New Guinea pipeline.