Volume 2, issue #23 - 27-10-1997

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Tapada power plant to receive first Algerian gas in October

Sept. 24, 1997 Algerian natural gas supplies will reach the Tapada power station in northern Portugal in October and construction of the plant, the most advanced being built in Europe, is on schedule, its general manager said.
"We expect to take the first gas at the end of October," Graham Miles, general manager and director of joint venture company Turbogas, owner of the plant, told. "The good news is that the construction of the plant is on time," he added.
The 1,000 MW plant, which will supply 20 % of Portugal's electricity, will use natural gas sent down a $ 1.88 billion pipeline from Algeria via Morocco and Spain to Portugal. The plant at Tapada do Outeiro, 18 km south-east of Oporto, will have 3 units, each with 330 MW capacity. The first unit is expected to come on stream by March 1998, the second by Sept. 1998 and the third by May 1999. "The first unit is on time. The second and third units are ahead of schedule," Miles said.
Portugal needs some 5,000 MW capacity in the winter.
Tapada, the biggest combined cycle power plant in Iberia, will turn 55 % of the natural gas it receives into electricity, a much higher rate of efficiency than a coal-fired power plant.
Some 750 construction and engineering workers, most of them Portuguese, are involved in building the plant. The workforce includes about 50 expatriates, including staff from German group Siemens and British generator PowerGen .
Miles said that despite the size of the construction project no time had been lost due to accidents.
Turbogas' main shareholder is PowerGen, operator of the plant, which holds a 50 % stake minus one share. The other shareholders are Portuguese state-owned electricity company EDP-Electricidade de Portugal , which has a 10 % stake, and German companies RWE , which has a 25 % stake plus one share, Siemens, which has a 10 % stake, and Koch which has 5 %.Siemens and Koch are building the plant under a turnkey construction contract awarded to them by Turbogas.
Turbogas has a power purchase agreement withits client the Portuguese national grid, Rede Electrica Nacional (REN), a unit of EDP, and a gas supply agreement with state company Transgas, which will supply the Algerian natural gas to Tapada.
The first supplies of Algerian natural gas were delivered by Transgas to regional distributors and industrial companies in Portugal from March this year.
PowerGen will receive income from REN for providing the capacity and energy and will pay Transgas for receiving the gas.
When the power purchase agreement (PPA) and gas supply agreement run out 25 years after the start of commercial operations, ownership of Tapada will transfer to REN unless the PPA is renewed.