British Gas Seeks Permitting for 500MW Power Station in Tunisia

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). British Gas plc (BG plc) (NYSE: BRG) (Reading, United Kingdom) and it's Tunisian subsidiary British Gas Tunisia Limited (Tunis, Tunisia) are seeking Governmental permit approval for the development of a $350 million natural gas fired 500 megawatt combined-cycle power station. The Tunisian Government has recently approved an environment impact assessment study for the project and if the assessment is approved construction could commence as early as first quarter 2004, with a commercial operational start-up in first quarter 2006.

The power plant will be located adjacent to the Hannibal gas treating plant owned by BG plc, located 15 kilometers southwest of the city of Sfax along the Tunisian southeastern coast. The power project is to use unprocessed gas form BG's nearby offshore Hasdrubal, Miskar, and Jugurtha gas fields. The power plant will consist of two 250 megawatt power trains (Blocks) with each consisting of one combustion turbine generator with a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) to drive a single steam turbine generator utilizing combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology. The power produced will be sold to Tunisia's state owned utility Societe Tunisienne de L'Electricite et du Gaz (Steg).

British Gas plc is Tunisia's largest producer of gas and is committed to undertake further investment opportunities utilizing its gas expertise and to develop gas-to-power projects in the country. British Gas plc is a subsidiary of the British Gas Group plc (BG Group) it is a company that discovers, extracts, transmits, and supplies natural gas to existing and developing markets around the world. The company has four-business segments exploration, production gas & oil development, production and marketing. Power generation provides the element of securing and accelerating the commercialization of BG's own gas. BG plc has over 1340 employees and has a company operating profit of over $809 million for 2002.