Siemens, Hyundai Vie to Build Alro Power Plant in Romania
Romanian aluminum smelter Alro SA (ALR) received bids from seven companies, including Siemens AG (SIE) and a group of companies led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., to build a 250 megawatt gas-fired power plant by 2014.
Alro, majority owned by Vimetco NV (VICO), plans to select a general contractor for the project in the second quarter, Chief Executive Officer Gheorghe Dobra said during a conference in Bucharest today. China Huandian Engineering, China National Electric Engineering, Metka SA, Minmetals Engineering Co. Ltd. and Sinohydro Corp. Ltd. also submitted bids, Dobra said.
“We want the contractor to build us a power plant from scratch and fully operational,” Dobra said, without giving the value of the investment. “We plan to become an energy- independent group, so that we won’t be affected by the disruptions in the country’s electricity system.”
The Romanian smelter said today it may temporarily halt the functioning of some production units or restructure operations after a drought in the country cut power supplies from hydropower generator Hidroelectrica SA.
Alro has the electricity supplies needed for the first quarter of this year after it bought “everything there was available in the market,” said Chairman Marian Nastase.
Vimetco, which planned a potential share offering of as much as 21 percent of Alro last year, postponed the sale because of “adverse market conditions.”
“These plans remain frozen for now and we don’t know for how long,” Dobra said in an interview today.
Alro’s exports totaled $525 million last year and represented about 70 percent of the company’s total revenue, Nastase also said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andra Timu in Bucharest at atimu@bloomberg.net; Irina Savu in Bucharest at isavu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net
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