GDF Suez Faces Strong Opposition on Proposed 230-Megawatt Ploufragan Project in France

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--GDF Suez SA's (EPA:GSZ) (Paris) 230-megawatt (MW) Ploufragan Power Station planned near the Catalets Industrial area in France's Brittany Region is facing strong opposition from community authorities, who now say that a second public survey will not be conducted. The second procedure was announced in 2008 and is mandatory in order to obtain exploitation and construction permits.

The project had been delayed after the local government of St. Brieuc passed a motion against it in January 2008 citing extreme humidity of the site land. Construction was initially planned to begin in the second quarter of 2008 with commissioning scheduled sometime in the first few months of 2011.

The plant was to be developed by a consortium headed by Centrax Gas Turbines, a division of Centrax Limited (Devon, England), and Litwin of the Bateman Litwin group (LSE:BNLN) (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Ploufragan would be equipped with four 60-MW Rolls-Royce TRENT 60 dual-fuel gas turbines.

GDF SUEZ is a leading utility present in the electricity and gas market throughout the world. In France, the group commissioned its first combined-cycle power station, DK6, a 790-MW facility built by Alstom, in 2005. In the Brittany Region, GDF Suez has a power station under construction near the Montoir-de-Bretagne methane terminal. After the delivery of the GE gas turbine to the site this month, the company expects to commission this 430-MW combined cycle unit in early 2010. Montoir-de Bretagne power station will supply power to the local grid in a region that currently imports more than 90% of its electricity demand.

The company, through its subsidiary Cycofos, also expects to increase its electricity production in France by commissioning two new facilities in the second quarter of 2009 for a total output of 480 MW at an ArcellorMittal (NYSE:MT) (Luxembourg, Luxembourg) site in Fos-sur-Mer.

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