Montenegro and Italy will sign
a 700 million euro ($959.9 million) deal that will
lead to the construction of a high-voltage cable between the two
Adriatic countries, a top Montenegrin official said on Friday.
The underwater power cable, part of a wider Italian
investors' plan to invest up to 5 billion euros in energy
projects and infrastructure in Montenegro, is meant to alleviate
electricity shortages in both countries.
Under provisions of a bilateral memorandum of understanding
the two countries signed in June 2009, Italy's power grid
operator Terna had said the cable would be 100 kilometres-long
with a 1,000 MW initial capacity.
The deal, to be signed in Rome, envisages an additional 90
million euro investment in the Montenegrin power grid and in a
high-voltage transformer unit outside the coastal town of Tivat,
said Branko Vujovic, the Energy Minister.
"Montenegro will get a 20 percent share in the cable, a
significantly improved power grid and it will become a major
energy hub in the region," Vujovic told Reuters.
The deadline for the completion of the underwater cable is
2013 and the overhaul of the power grid is due by 2015, he said.
In 2009, Italy's A2A regional utility bought a 43.7 percent
stake in Montenegro's power monopoly EPCG and announced plans to
build a series of small hydroelectric power plants in Montenegro
with a total capacity of 240 MW.
Italian power group Enel is interested in building an
800-1,200 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Montenegro together
with the Duferco group.
Montenegro is seeking investors to boost revenues after last
year's figures showed the 2009 recession was much deeper than
anticipated and the worst in the Western Balkans.
The least populated Balkan country, with only 680,000
people, Montenegro enjoyed an economic boom during the mid 2000s
mainly fuelled by tourism and real estate sectors, but
investments have fallen significantly due to global recession.
(Source: forexpros.com)
