Croatia: The Greens want transparency in contracting with Marubeni

Published on 10. March 2015., SEE Energy News

Greenpeace, Green Istria and Green Action requested the transparency of the negotiations on the TPP Plomin C, namely, disclosure of the expected production and electricity sale price and public scrutiny in HEP’s negotiations with Marubeni. This agreement signing six months after the publication of the first official information that Marubeni was the preferred bidder for Plomin C shows that negotiations with this company go very slowly and face with the problems; it is the Greens’ opinion.

“After Marubeni finally becomes the official exclusive partner, there have been created the preconditions for the negotiations transparency on the purchase price of electricity from Plomin C. We do not want that Croatian citizens have to pay more for electricity because of negotiations taken behind closed doors”, said Bernard Ivcic, President of Green Action. Association warn that the expected price of electricity produced from Plomin C is higher than 70 € / MWh, while the price in the European market is 30-45 € / MWh, which means that, in the event of an unfavorable contract, the citizens will have to pay the price difference.

They state that TPP 6 in Slovenia, just built thermal power plant on coal, will operate with annual losses of about 80 MEUR per year, and the initial investment cost of 602 MEUR has been doubled until today. This was, as they stress, due to the lack of transparency in project design. ” Therefore we urge the HEP to publish information on the anticipated production cost of Plomin C and conditions offered to Marubeni in order not to happen, as was case in Slovenia, that finally were sued for corruption and fraud”, the statement said.