The
Bulgarian units of US companies AES and Contour Global agreed with state-owned
power utility NEK on a decrease by 14% and 17%, respectively, in the capacity
price for electricity produced by their coal-fired plants in the southeast of
the country, the Bulgarian government said on Wednesday.
For its part,
NEK will pay all arrears to the two companies amounting to a total of 700
million levs ($389 million/358 million euro), the government said in a statement
posted on its website.
The agreement with NEK for an amendment to the
Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that the plants have with the utility will
result in cumulative savings for NEK of about 1.0 billion levs andannual
savings of about 100 million levs over the remaining term of the PPAs, it
added.
AES, which operates the Maritsa Iztok 1 coal-fired plant in
Galabovo, and ContourGlobal, which owns Maritsa Iztok 3 TPP, signed PPAs with
NEK in 2001. The PPAs expire in 2026.
Binding agreements are expected to
be signed by the third quarter of the year, subject to customary regulatory
approvals and approval from the project lenders, the Bulgarian unit of AES said
in a statement earlier in the day.
In February AES and ContourGlobal
signed a memorandum with NEK on a decrease in theprices at which it buys
electricity produced by the two companies' plants.