Termopernambuco start date slips

The US$400mn, 520MW Termopernambuco thermoelectric power plant at Suape in Brazil's Pernambuco state will miss its scheduled January 1 start date and fire up by May, newspaper Diario de Pernambuco reported. The Guaraniana consortium, headed by Spain's Iberdrola, is developing the project. The delay is due to the consortium seeking to change some of the terms of the gas supply contract with federal energy company Petrobras and local gas distributor Copergas, the newspaper reported. Construction of the plant and the associated gas infrastructure has been completed, but the tests that were programmed for the fourth quarter 2003 have now been put back to the first quarter 2004. Gas consumption in the test period will be some 200,000-300,000 cubic feet a day, according to Copergas president Romero Oliveira. The supply contract is for 1.5 million cubic feet a day (mcf/d) and the plant would use 2.1mcf/d at maximum capacity, he added.