Viridian has bought out its partner CRH from a power station project in north Co Dublin. The Huntstown plant was initially planned as a 50:50 joint venture, but CRH signalled last June that it wanted to reduce its shareholding to 15 per cent.
CRH's loss of interest was unexpected as it had never indicated it had only a short-term interest in the project.
A spokesman said CRH would not comment yesterday on what he termed market speculation but it is understood the two companies have finalised the transfer of CRH's stake in the £160-£170 million (€203-€215 million) project, which will generate power by summer 2002.
The consideration was not disclosed although a person familiar with the deal said it involved the transfer of 25 acres of land owned by CRH on which the power station will be built to Viridian, the former electricity monopoly in Northern Ireland.
It is thought Viridian has not ruled out selling a stake in the project to a third party.
Viridian has denied that a delay in selling the stake, which was on the market for five months, meant there was no interest in the project.
The deal may have been conditional on its ability to secure a gas supply for the plant in an allocation made by the commissioner for electricity regulation, Mr Tom Reeves. Viridian secured enough gas in the competition to generate 330 megawatts of power.
The process was necessary because Bord Gais does not have enough surplus gas to supply all the groups who wanted to build power plants around Dublin.
In a competition finalised this month, Mr Reeves also allocated gas to a project co-owned by the ESB and the multinational energy group Statoil.
A group backed by Esat's founder Mr Denis O'Brien and the British oil group BP Amoco failed to secure gas in the competition. While Mr O'Brien's group, ePower, has challenged Mr Reeves in the courts once before, its intentions are still unclear.
Mr Reeves is known to have allocated gas to the ESB - on the basis that its project at Ringsend would feed gas into the National Grid - before the plant backed by ePower.
