Serb power monopoly to seek loans for plant maintenance in 2012

Elektroprivreda Srbije, Serbia’s power monopoly, may spend 300 million euros ($397 million) on plant maintenance this year following record production caused by harsh winter.

The state-run company plans to fund about a half of the cost from own resources and borrow the rest from banks, Board Chairman Aca Markovic said in Belgrade today. Exact needs will be known after the utility, also known as EPS, determines its 2011 result and how much it spent on higher-than-unexpected imports of electricity during the cold snap in January and February, he said.

“The imports cost 70 million euros so far” as prices soared on high consumption when most of Europe was engulfed by snow storms, Markovic said. Coal-fired plants and the mines that supply them will use about two-thirds of the maintenance cost, while the rest will be spent on hydro-power plants.

“We don’t have the money ready, we still owe significant amounts to contractors” for the works performed last year, he said, adding that EPS plans to invite offers next month.

EPS’s biggest group of thermal power plants, Nikola Tesla in Obrenovac, will alone require 80 million euros for maintenance after working at nearly 97 percent capacity this winter, Markovic said. “If we invest less, the output next winter will be smaller and that’s risky with all the climate changes.”

EPS produced more than 36 billion kilowatt hours last year, slightly exceeding its peak output from 2009, even as drought hindered hydro-power plants’ output and the coal-fired utilities had to compensate for the soaring demand that broke an all-time record this month with daily consumption reaching 162.27 million kilowatt hours on Feb. 8.