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Published on December 19, 2007

Energy permanent secretary Pornchai Rujiprapha said yesterday that the firm's original disqualification continued, as the Council of State had refused to interpret whether it is a state enterprise.

"The Council of State said the interpretation is not under its jurisdiction, which deals mainly with legal conflicts between state agencies. It is therefore the responsibility of the subcommittee handling the IPP bidding to handle this case," Pornchai said.

Ratchaburi's share price yesterday dropped Bt1 or 2.2 per cent to Bt44.50.

The company was hopeful that it would be interpreted as a non-state enterprise, as a result of which it would be reinstated into the bidding. Then, if its offered power rate were lower than four bid-winners, Ratchaburi could land a deal to generate and sell 800 megawatts of power to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

Viraphol Jirapraditkul, director-general of the Energy Policy and Planning Office and a member of the subcommittee, said that following the Council of State's comments, Ratchaburi would effectively be banned from the IPP bidding because it is deemed a state enterprise under the Finance Ministry's criteria.

He also insisted that in disqualifying the company, the subcommittee had focused solely on the shareholding structure. At the bid submission date, Ratchaburi was more than 50 per cent owned by state agencies (Egat, 45 per cent; Government Savings Bank, 2.62 per cent; and Social Security Fund, 4.91 per cent) and thus it was deemed a state enterprise.

In October, Ratchaburi submitted an IPP bid to build an 800MW natural gas-fired power plant. Its subsidiary, Ratchaburi Electricity Generating - together with Rojana Industrial Park, KPIC Netherlands and the Sumikin Bussan Corp - submitted a separate bid for an 800MW natural gas-fired plant in Ayutthaya province.

The Nation