EGCO TARGETS MORE REGIONAL POWER PLANTS

       Electricity Generating (Egco) is interested in investing in power plants in the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam as part of a plan to maintain its net profit at Bt5 billion per year over the next four to five years.
       The company is targeting plants for which the power-purchase agreements with their customers have at least 10 years to run, and whose business is not too large, Egco president Vinit Tangnoi said yesterday.
       It hopes to invest at the rate of at least one project every year over the next four to five years, in order to seek new income sources to maintain its net profit at an annual Bt5 billion.
       He said the group would however still give top priority to investment in Thailand.
       Egco is currently invested in 14 power plants, of which four are overseas. They have a combined capacity of 7,265 megawatts, of which 4,252MW equates to the proportion of its shareholding in the plants.
       Of the four overseas plants in which it has invested, three are in the Philippines and the other in Laos - the Nam Theun 2 project.
       Sakda Sreesangkom, Egco group senior executive vice president for finance, said the global economic downturn had worked in favour of the company's planned investment in more overseas plants, as the crisis had driven US and European investors in the foreign power-plant business to sell assets in order to ease their debt burden.
       Last year, the company acquired 26 per cent of Quezon Power (Philippines). The coal-fired plant has a production capacity of 502MW.
       The group is financially ready to invest in further regional power plants, thanks to its cash flow of Bt4 billion, he said.
       Egco posted consolidated net profit of Bt1.44 billion for the second quarter, up Bt963 million or 67 per cent over the same period last year. Its consolidated net profit in the first half was Bt4.64 billion, up 9 per cent year on year.
       Sakda expects net profit to decline in the second half and over the next four to five years, prompting Egco to seek new investment in order to maintain the annual Bt5-billion level.
       The company expects the Nam Theun 2 power plant will realise profit in the second half of next year. The plant has a production capacity of 1,086MW.