Dead Sea Works has a conditional permit to build a facility with a capacity of up to 700 megawatts.
Plans to build private power plants in Israel have suffered yet another setback. ''Globes'' has learned that Israel Chemicals (TASE: CHIM) unit Dead Sea Works is cutting back the capacity of its planned power plant near Sdom. Dead Sea Works recently applied to the Public Utilities Authority (Electricity) for a license to build a 400 megawatt power plant, despite already having conditional license for up to 700 MW.
Israel Chemicals is a subsidiary of Israel Corp. (TASE: ILCO). Israel Corp said in a recent prospectus that the main reason for scaling down the project was that "there is currently no infrastructure solution for the transmission of electricity from Sdom to central Israel, nor is there likely to be such a solution in the coming years." The company will probably have difficulty selling surplus electricity to customers in central Israel, without this infrastructure.
Israel Corp also said that Israel Chemicals division ICL Fertilizers was considering the construction of a power plant with which will supply the group's electricity needs. The plant will have an initial capacity of 200 MW and may be increased to 400 MW at a later stage.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on September 11, 2007
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