Oracle Power’s Chinese partners revise stake in Thar project

KARACHI: Oracle Power, the UK energy developer of combined lignite coal mine and mine mouth power plant in Thar Coalfields Block-VI, signed a ceremonial memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Beijing Jingneng Power Company (BJPC) and PowerChina International Group.

Under the MoU, BJPC has reduced its stake in the project to 73 percent from 78 percent previously; PowerChina increased its stake to 15 percent from 9.9 percent, while Oracle’s stake in the project remains intact at 12 percent, which earlier was 12.1 percent.

Oracle Power announced that as part of the China Belt and Road Summit held in Beijing on April 27-28, 2019, the MoU agreed between BJPC and PowerChina International Group has been ceremonially signed by the parties.

“The ceremony took place as part of the Investment Conference of the Belt and Road Summit and the MoU was signed by Song Dongsheng, the president of Power China, Zhao Jianbo, the deputy general manager of BJPC and Mark Steed, chairman of the board of Oracle. The ceremony was overseen by Abdul Razak Dawood, advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister on commerce, textile industries and production and investment,” a notice issued to London Stock Exchange noted.

Oracle CEO Naheed Memon said, “I am delighted to take part in a ceremonial signing of the MoU with our Chinese partners, a public way of demonstrating their strong commitment to the project. Work in Pakistan continues, particularly in the planning of predevelopment work. We will be updating the market with an operational update shortly.”

Oracle Power raised £500,000 to help fund its share of the pre-development project work at its electricity plant in Pakistan. Along with Chinese energy giant BJPC and its other joint venture partner, PowerChina, Oracle was developing a 700MW coal-fired electricity plant in Thar.

Oracle raised the money by issuing 117.65 million new shares at a price of 0.425p a piece.

The initial phase of development carries a capital cost of $1.6 billion and was for a gross 4 million tons/annum mine, feeding a 700MW power plant.