ERG Renew, LUKOIL Dissolve Romania/Bulgaria-Focused JV

The two shareholders of LUKERG Renew, a 50/50 joint venture between ERG Renew and LUKOIL created in 2011 with a view to investing in the wind sector in Bulgaria and Romania, have mutually agreed to dissolve the joint venture, Italy's ERG said on Thursday.

"We view this transaction favourably, as it will allow us to expand our presence in the East European wind power market with high quality assets and, in the immediate future, to improve their operational performance [..]," Luca Bettonte, ERG Group chief executive officer, said in a company statement.

As part of an agreement on sharing of the assets pertaining to the joint venture, ERG Renew will be assigned the 40 MW Tcherga and the 14 MW Hrabrovo wind farms in Bulgaria and the 70 MW Gebeleisis wind farm in Romania while LUKOIL will retain ownership of just the 84 MW Topolog wind farm.

The asset-sharing deal will enable ERG Renew to increase its overall installed capacity by 20 MW, with respect to the share held through the joint venture - 104 MW.

The transaction's enterprise value amounts to approximately 27 million euro ($30.3 million), mainly represented by non-recourse project financing. The closing is expected to take place by the end of this year.

Source: SeeNews