ALRO Slatina announces that it has been declared the “selected investor” following the public tender organized by Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CEO) to jointly build the gas-fired power plant in Isalnita. ALRO is one of the largest vertically integrated aluminum producers in Europe by production capacity and one of Romania’s largest electricity consumers.

According to the tender announcement, CEO and ALRO will negotiate the establishment of a joint venture Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to build an 850 MW natural gas-fired power plant, subject to corporate approvals from both companies. It will replace two old coal-fired plants (blocks) of 315 MW each, ALRO said in a statement to the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

“This partnership will give ALRO the opportunity to diversify its business model, as security of electricity supply is a necessity for the aluminum industry and will support the Group’s long-term development plans in a challenging business environment,” said Marian Năstase, Chairman of ALRO’s Board of Directors.

For about two years, CE Oltenia has been looking for partners for 10 major investment projects in new generation capacity, part of the restructuring and modernization plan approved in January 2022.„Nine of [these projects] have been awarded, we have partners for all eight solar parks, for four of them – OMV Petrom, for the other four – Tinmar Energy, and for the Turceni gas project – Tinmar Energy.”, said Sorin Alecu, Director of Strategy CE Oltenia, at the Energy Strategy Summit 2022, an event organized by Energynomics. “Now [June 2022] we are in the process of relaunching the process for the 850 MW block in Isalnita, where we expect to identify a partner in September. There is interest. With the current partners, we are in the final stage of negotiating shareholder agreements, so that sometime in August we can launch the EPC tenders through these new SPVs. The assumed commissioning deadlines for the PV parks are somewhere in 2024,” he concluded.