Germany's RWE sold its majority stake
in a 250 million euro ($335 million) wind energy project in Romania because of
complicated bureaucracy, a newspaper quoted a company official as saying on
Wednesday.
Ziarul Financiar also quoted a government
source as saying the German utility company plans to announce it will also pull
out of a minority share in a Romanian nuclear project.
The wind
energy park would have been located in the southeast Romanian county of
Constanta and had a planned capacity of 147 megawatts, the daily reported.
RWE sold
its 90 percent stake to Sabloal Energie Eoliana, the developer of the project,
the paper reported.
"Because
of the complicated approval process and also because of problems that came up
related to the ownership on the land, our decision was to leave the project,"
RWE's head for wind energy projects in southeast Europe and Turkey, Karin Canta,
was quoted as saying.
Foreign
investment in Romania's energy sector has focused primarily on wind parks. Czech
power group CEZ (CEZPsp.PR: Quote), Italy's Enel (ENEI.MI: Quote), Energias de
Portugal (EDP.LS: Quote) and others are currently developing projects, lured by
the size of the market, good wind and a generous support scheme based on green
certificates.
Canta also
told the newspaper RWE would make an official announcement next week regarding
Romania's nuclear reactors 3 and 4 in Cernavoda.
"RWE will
leave this project. Again the state will buy this participation, because it has
no choice," Ziarul Financiar quoted an unidentified economy ministry source as
saying.
Romania
holds the majority stake in EnergoNuclear, the joint company that will build the
two new units. Its minority stakeholders include Belgium's Electrabel LYOE.PA,
Italy's Enel, Spain's Iberdrola (IBE.MC: Quote), a local unit of ArcelorMittal
(ISPA.AS: Quote) and Germany's RWE.
Romania
plans to cut its stake in the planned nuclear reactors to a minority, but in
December bought a 9.15 stake from Czech power group CEZ, which quit the project.