GMR may refinance $1.1 bn InterGen purchase loan in 2011

GMR Infrastructure Ltd, which had acquired 50 per cent of Dutch power utility InterGen NV for $1.1 billion, may refinance the loan taken for the purchase in early 2011, an official said.

GMR doesn’t have other loans due for refinancing this year and next and the InterGen investment would be the first, Ranjit Murugason, CEO, international division, said in Singapore today.

The European Union approved GMR’s purchase of InterGen in September. InterGen, in which Ontario Teachers Pension Plan holds a 50 per cent stake since 2005, operates 12 power plants in the UK, the Netherlands, Mexico, Australia and the Philippines, with annual sales totalling $1.65 billion.

Singapore may face excess power capacity as the economy contracts amid a global recession, Murugason said.

GMR and InterGen plan to set up a $985 million Island Power plant in Singapore. He declined to give a time frame for the 785-megawatt project’s completion or details of how the plant will get natural gas needed to produce electricity.

Indonesia cancelled an agreement to sell gas to Island Power Co after the buyer failed to secure transportation through a pipeline, Indonesia’s gas regulator said in July 2007.