Mitsubishi wins Tuxpan V

Mexico's state power company CFE has awarded Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation and partner Kyushu Electric Power a contract to build, own and operate the 495MW Tuxpan V thermoelectric plant. Spain's Iberdrola was the only other company that submitted a bid. The contract will be signed on January 23, a CFE source told BNamericas. The CFE opened economic offers on December 9 and had planned to award the contract on December 23, but the CFE moved the date forward to December 17, "because [the companies] asked us to advance the date so they could do some paperwork before the end of the year," the source said. Construction will start in July and the plant should start operations in 2006. Total investment will be some US$300mn. Mitsubishi will own 70% and Kyushu Electric 30%. The companies are already partners on the nearby 450MW Tuxpan II project in Veracruz state. Tuxpan V will sell all its power output to the CFE under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to be signed in January. The majority of the electricity produced will go to Mexico City. Japan's Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) and other commercial lenders are likely to fund the project, Bloomberg reported Mitsubishi as saying. Subsidiary Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build and supply the turbines and equipment for the project. Apart from Tuxpan II and V, Mitsubishi owns 49% of the Altamira II plant, 100% of the Chihuahua thermoelectric plants and 100% of the Cerro Prieto geothermal plant. The company has built a number of other plants in Mexico as sub-contractor.