Rousse TPP - Bulgaria’s Privatization Agency (PA) announced July 25 it has launched a procedure to sell the Rousse (West) thermal utility by an open tender. The electricity producer will be separated from the Rousse heating utility, which is centered on the Rousse (East) electricity and heating power producer and which is also slated for privatization. The future owner will have to preserve the line of business of the utility. PA is currently performing an appraisal of the utility, and will draft the information memorandum, after which it will announced the details about the tender procedure. The Rousse (West) thermal utility will be privatized separately from the Rousse heating utility, as it generates only a token 2 percent of the revenues. The electricity producer is serving a small group of corporate clients. The Rousse (West) thermal utility is designed for a combined electricity and heating power generation. It was commissioned in 1972. It was initially designed as a coal-burning operation. The company was reconstructed in 1989 and switched to natural gas. Currently the Rousse (West) thermal utility is used mainly as a heating utility with an output capacity of 41 MW.

The Privatization Agency (PA) terminated the procedure for the sale of 100% of the thermal power plant (TPP) in Rousse in January. The decision followed the cancellation of negotiations with RAO United Energy Systems (UES) after last summer the Commission for the Protection of Competition decided that the Russian company could not acquire both plants in Rousse and Varna, which were offered in two parallel procedures. RAO UES chose to hold talks on the Varna TPP but that deal also failed. The offer of the second-ranked bidder for the Rousse TPP, Czech CEZ, was not satisfactory. Therefore the PA has decided not to hold negotiations with it and terminate the procedure.