Nong Khae Cogeneration Co Ltd

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Nong Khae Cogeneration Co Ltd owned and operated a 126-MW combined cycle natural gas powered plant located in Nong Khae Saraburi. Nong Khae Cogeneration Company Limited was a subsidary of Gulf Electric Public Company Limited (GEC) which was in turn a joint venture between partially divested Electricity Generating Company (EGCO) of Thailand (50%), Japan Electric Power Development Company Limited (EPDC or J-POWER) (49%) and Mit Siam (1%). Gulf Electric was in turn originally a 50:50 joint venture comprising the local Lanna Lignite and Siam City Cement. However, in June 2000 EGCO bought Siam City Cement's 50% interest in the company while in October 2001 Lanna Lignite sold 49% of its 50% interest in Gulf Electric to Japan's J-POWER and the remaining 1% to Japan's Mitsiam International. EGCO was set up in May of 1992 as a holding company to divest some of the assets of the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). In November 1994, EGCO floated 204 million shares, or 51% of the company, at 22 baht each, raising US$178.5 million and effectively making it a privately run company. The shares made their debut on the Thai stock market in January of 1995. Although EGAT retained a 48% interest in EGCO, the company was to be run as a separate entity and was to be out of the EGAT's sphere. In July of 1998, Hong Kong utility firm China Light and Power Co. Ltd. (CLP Power) acquired a 14.9% stake in EGCO for US$241 million. EGAT then owned 25% of EGCO. As of 2004, the stake holders of EGCO were EGAT (25.41%), CLP Power (22.42%), Thai investors (30.09%), and foreign investors (22.08%). The project was part of the EGAT's Small Power Producers Projects. Sithe Energies (the original sponsor) reached financial closure on the project in December 1998. The project cost was estimated to be US$107 million. The project signed a 21-year power purchase agreement with EGAT for 90 MW of the installed capacity. The plant was scheduled to start its commercial operations in October 2000. In November 2000, Tractebel acquired all of Sithe's Power Thai assets, including 100% of the Nong Khae Cogeneration company's shares. In November 2002, Gulf Electric took over the project from Tractebel and made efforts to refinance loans and adjust the debt to equity ratio of the project. Under Gulf Electric, efforts were made to raise Bt 5,400 million via IFC of Thailand. The funds will be used to refinance the loans and adjust the debt to equity ratio for this project and for the Samut Prakarn Project.