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DPC lenders meet ends; but no disclosures made

Foreign and domestic lenders to the bankrupt Enron Corp's $2.9 billion Indian power plant ended a three-day meeting in Singapore on Friday without disclosing what progress they had made on how the unit should be sold.

"The meeting has ended. It is productive and a plan of action has been developed," said an ABN AMRO spokeswoman, but she declined to elaborate on details.

ABN AMRO, one of the advisors, hosted the meeting, which was called to finalise the due diligence dates and decide on how to select a buyer for the 85-per cent foreign equity stake in Dahbol Power Co.

More than 20 lenders, including both Indian and foreign banks, have a combined exposure of nearly $1.9 billion to the project, once the showpiece of foreign investment in India.

Several companies have made preliminary bids or "expressions of intent" for the foreign stake in DPC, the company set up to build and operate the 2,184 MW power plant, Enron's most valuable asset in Asia. They will now have to submit financial bids.

Enron owns 65 per cent of DPC, General Electric Co and US contractor Bechtel Corp each own 10 per cent.

The remaining 15 per cent is held by the Maharashtra State Electricity Board.

The Industrial Development Bank of India, the project's lead creditor, invited preliminary bids on January 30 for the entire 85 per cent foreign stake in DPC.

Among the international bidders are British Gas, Royal Dutch/Shell and French utility Gaz de France.

Indian bidders include leading petrochemicals maker Reliance Industries Ltd, private power utilities BSES Ltd and Tata Power Co, and state-run Gas Authority of India Ltd, the country's largest natural gas distributor.

The power plant, located about 250 km south of Mumbai on the coast of the Arabian Sea, has been idle since June 2001 following a payment dispute with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, a financially strapped state power distribution monopoly and sole customer of the Dabhol plant.

The 740-megawatt (MW) first phase started operations in May 1999 and the 1,444-MW second phase was nearly complete when construction was halted in June after the MSEB fell $240 million behind in payments for power already supplied.

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