December 5 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition will look into the proposed acquisition by Ultimate Energy Investment Group LLC of shares of thermal power plant (TPP) operators Bobov Dol [BUL:TBD] and Brikel, the regulator said.
Ultimate Energy Investment Group LLC, which requested to acquire an unspecified number of shares in each of the two power plants, is currently inactive, according to two notices published by the CPC last week.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
The proposed transactions are not expected to affect the ongoing operations of Bobov Dol and Brikel, namely production and transmission of thermal and heating energy as well as Brikel's production of briquettes, enriched energy fuel and energy fuel from lignite coal, the notifications also show.
Ultimate Energy Investment Group is not listed in Bulgaria's commercial register. A US-based company of this name is listed as investing in foreign energy operations, consulting on US and multilateral agency energy programmes and resources and assisting the US Department of Defense with renewable energy solutions as well as with introductions to major banks, investment funds and private investors.
TPP Bobov Dol, established in 2000, is located in Bulgaria's southwestern region of Kyustendil and has an installed capacity of 630 MW. In the first nine months of 2022, it swung to a consolidated net profit of 1.87 million levs ($1 million/956,115 euro) from a loss of 15 million levs in the same period last year.
In September, Bobov Dol CEO Lyubomir Spasov told SeeNews the plant operator is investing about 100 million levs to build a 100-MW solar plant which will eventually allow it to produce green hydrogen to help cut carbon emissions.
TPP Brikel, for its part, is located in Galabovo, in the Stara Zagora region and has previously been shut down for environmental breaches. It has six boilers with nameplate capacity of 60 MW and four turbines with a nameplate capacity of 50 MW.
The EU's Just Transition Fund (JTF) has allocated 1.3 billion euro ($1.37 billion) to address the socio-economic fallout of the energy transition in Bulgaria, focusing on the most impacted regions – Pernik, Kyustendil, Stara Zagora, to support their economies to decarbonise.
Bulgaria is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10% compared to 2005 levels under provisionally agreed annual binding targets for EU members to 2030, the European Commission said last month.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)