In Brief
RF Energy plans to invest 250 mln euros Power company RF Energy plans to invest 250 million euros ($394.3 million) by 2010, expanding its business to meet growing demand for alternative energy in Greece, a senior executive said yesterday. Greece liberalized its energy market last year, making it easier for smaller companies to challenge entrenched power utility Public Power Corporation. RF, the power subsidiary of wholesaler FG Europe, currently has 17.6 megawatts’ capacity with a wind park and small hydroelectric plant in the south of the country. It wants to increase this more than 20-fold over three years. «For the medium- and long-term RF is aiming for a total capacity of 428.5 MW by 2010,» general manager Ioannis Pantousis told Reuters in an interview. «In the short term RF has two projects under construction for a total of 11 MW.» «(We have) a goal to invest 250 million euros… allocated to own project development as well as mergers and acquisitions. RF intends to expand abroad… mainly in the Balkan region,» he said. Greece currently generates less than 5 percent of its power from renewable energy sources. (Reuters) Serbia launches effort to privatize RTB Bor BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia launched its third effort to privatize troubled copper complex RTB Bor yesterday, this time looking for a strategic partner instead of a new owner. RTB was run down in the 1990s when Serbia faced sanctions for its role in the Yugoslav wars, and is estimated to have debts of US$500 million. Attempts to sell it to Romania’s Cuprom and Austria’s A-TEC in the last couple of years both fell through at the last minute. A tender published in Politika daily said only firms with annual production of more than 80,000 tons of pure copper or over 100,000 tons of cathode copper would be eligible. It did not give any other terms. From August 1 to September this year, 26 potential investors will be able to meet RTB Bor management and inspect the facilities, the tender said. They have until September 30 to send a letter of interest. Meeting starts The board members of Russian oil venture TNK-BP, jointly owned by British Petroleum and four Russia-connected billionaires, started a key meeting yesterday to discuss governance at the embattled firm. The Russian shareholders failed to attend a previous board meeting in Cyprus in late May, after the two sides publicly aired their differences over strategy and control at the firm, which pumps as much oil as Britain. «It is a regular board meeting to discuss the agenda. The details of the agenda are confidential,» said a BP spokesman in the Mediterranean port of Limassol on Cyprus, who asked that his name not be given. TNK-BP, Russia’s second-biggest foreign investment, is the focus of a year-long struggle between British Petroleum and its partners. (Reuters) Resignation talk The chairman and the chief executive of Credit Agricole, France’s biggest retail bank, could resign amid problems over the global credit crunch, French newspaper Le Monde reported yesterday. Le Monde, citing its own sources, said Chief Executive Georges Pauget could threaten to resign during a board meeting scheduled for Tuesday. (Reuters)
