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Mighty River Power invested $124m into overseas projects in 2010

Mighty River Power invested $124m into overseas projects in 2010 Nga Awa Purua geothermal power plant, New Zealand (source: Mighty River Power)
Alexander Richter 23 Mar 2011

New Zealand state-owned Mighty River Power says it has invested US$124 million into international projects in 2010, with a commitment of US$250m to partner GeoGlobal Energy. The company invested US$124m into projects in California, Chile and Germany.

In news from New Zealand, it is reported that “state-owned Mighty River Power had put US$124 million ($169.6m) into overseas geothermal projects by the end of last year, the company says in an interim report.”

“It had committed total capital of US$250m to international partner GeoGlobal Energy (GGE) to secure and develop geothermal projects overseas.

Progress was made on several projects during the six months to December, with the US$124m spent on eight geothermal reservoirs in three countries, the report said.

Through GGE, Mighty River had invested US$92m of a total potential commitment of US$107m in a US$400m project in southern California being developed by EnergySource, in which GGE had a 20 percent shareholding.

In Chile, Mighty River had committed US$66m to work in the Tolhuaca field, of which US$17m had been spent by the end of 2010.

GGE was also working on developing low temperature geothermal resources in Germany, and by the end of 2010 had a number of concessions in Bavaria. A total of US$11m had been put into German projects so far, the report said.

Mighty River said it was looking to lever the geothermal knowledge it had gained while developing $1 billion in new projects in the past five years.

Geothermal now made up 31 percent of the company’s total generation, four times the amount in 2007.

Mighty River increased its interim dividend to the Government to $64.7m from $56.2m a year earlier.”

Source: Stuff.co.nz