The Sun Ba Power Corp (森霸電力), an independent power producer, said yesterday that it will start the commercial operation of a natural gas-fueled power plant in Tainan in April 2004.
The plant, Feng Der Power Plant (豐德電廠), will be powered by two gas fired, combine cycle units, generating a maximum of 980 megawatts of power for the Tainan area. Toshiba Corp of Japan will be responsible of the power plant's engineering, procurement and construction at a total cost of NT$20 billion, said Brian Hsu (徐崧富), chairman of Sun Ba.
"After three years of preparation, the project was approved last July by the Energy Commission and we expect to fund the project by a syndicated loan, in addition to our own assets," Hsu said yesterday afternoon at a syndicated loan contract-signing ceremony.
On a contracted period of 15 years, Sun Ba has raised a NT$16.98 billion syndicated loan from a pool of 22 domestic banks, including industry leaders such as Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行), China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫), Hsu said.
With the except of China Development, the other leading banks have each put forward as much as NT$2.5 billion for the project.
As one of the corporation's shareholders, China Development is only allowed to provide a loan of up to NT$1 billion. China Development has already provided NT$600 million for 19 percent of the corporation's shares.
With capital of NT$6 billion, the corporation is comprised of shareholders from Taiwan Cogeneration Corp (台灣汽電共生), Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖), Tokyo Power Corp and various financial institutions, Hsu said.
Taiwan Sugar provided a 16-hectare plot of land for the facility, helping to circumvent resistance to the project from local residents.
Representatives of all 22 banks were present at yesterday's signing ceremony. The Sun Ba loan is the largest syndicated loan this year in Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the corporation's application to sell power to the state-run Taiwan Power Co (
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