Powerfuel’s Hatfield Carbon Project Gets 10 Proposals, KPMG Says
KPMG International, administrator for the coal mine operator Powerfuel Plc, received 10 “expressions of interest” for one of Europe’s most advanced carbon-capture projects in Hatfield, northern England.
“We’re not giving any details of buyers, it’s a commercially sensitive process and that’s as much as we’re willing and able to give at the moment,” Alison Anderson, a Leeds-based spokeswoman for KPMG, said today by telephone.
Powerfuel, owned by Chief Executive Officer Richard Budge and former Russian billionaire Mikhail Abyzov, went into administration in December. Its debt is about 85 million pounds ($137 million), according to KPMG. The company’s assets include a coal mine and a project to build a power station that captures carbon dioxide from gasified coal for underground storage.
Britain’s coalition government has pledged 1 billion pounds to fund the first commercial demonstration project to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide. Known as CCS, it aims to cut emissions 80 percent by 2050 from 1990. This money will go to a CCS technology that captures CO2 from a coal plant after burning the fuel. Iberdrola SA’s Scottish Power unit is the only company in the running for the funds.
Powerfuel’s plans, among the most advanced in Europe according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysts, are to capture emissions before combustion. The company has permission to build a power station at the site near its coal field and won 180 million euros ($244 million) of European Commission funding.
The project is likely to apply for additional funds through the European Commission via the New Entrants Reserve of European Union carbon permits as well. Powerfuel is 653 million pounds short of the investment needed to develop the CCS project, according to KPMG.
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Sally Bakewell in London at Sbakewell1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
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