ENEL: MOU FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENERGY SECTOR IN ALBANIA

It was signed by Genc Ruli, Albanian Minister of Economy, Trade and Energy and Fulvio Conti, CEO of Enel, on the occasion of the visit to Tirana of the Italian PM, Romano Prodi The Memorandum envisages the construction of a thermal power plant to tackle with the growing domestic demand as well as to serve nearby markets.

Tirana, 3 December 2007 – In the presence of the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi and the Albanian Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, Fulvio Conti, Enel’s CEO and general manager, and Genc Ruli, Albania’s Minister for the Economy, Trade and Energy (METE) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of the Albanian energy sector.
The MoU was signed on the occasion of Prodi’s state visit to Tirana.

Fulvio Conti remarked: “Enel is very interested in the markets of south-eastern Europe, which have excellent prospects for growth and a need for new generation capacity. In this context, today’s MoU is very important thanks to Albania’s strategic position in the region and the strong institutional support for this international-calibre project of strategic interest for the country”.

Enel plans to build a thermal generation power plant fuelled by imported coal with last generation technologies with an estimated capacity of approximately 1300 MW, which along with satisfying the growing  domestic demand will also be able to serve the Italian market when new interconnections between the two countries  and South-Eastern Europe are established.

The new plant will provide Albania with baseload power at competitive costs thus making a decisive contribution to rebalancing the mix of the country’s sources of power, which are currently almost entirely accounted for by hydroelectric facilities.