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LONDON (Alliance News) - Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium, made up of Balfour Beatty Investments Ltd and Equitix Ltd, is among four shortlisted bidders competing to own and run transmission links to two offshore windfarms, both located in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire, Ofgem said Wednesday.
The consortium is competing against Blue Transmission Consortium, made up of 3i Group PLC's 3i Investments PLC and Mitsubishi Corporation; Mari Energy Transmission, made up of Macquarie Capital Group Ltd and Frontier Power; and Transmission Capital Partners, made up of Transmission Capital Partners Ltd Partnership and International Public Partnerships Ltd.
The shortlisted bidders go through to the final bid stage where Ofgem will appoint the Offshore Transmission Owner for each project, who will be granted a licence to own and operate the transmission links. The OFTOs will receive a guaranteed revenue stream for 20 years under the terms of their licence, subject to availability of the assets.
The Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway projects are being tendered under the third tender round of the OFTO regime, which totals about GBP400.0 million of transmission assets.
It is the first tender round under the new enduring regulatory regime.
Ofgem expects to announce details of the preferred bidders for the Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway in 2015.
Since it was set up by Ofgem and the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2009, the regime has attracted GBP1.4 billion of investment and led to significant savings for consumers.
A further GBP1.5 billion of transmission assets, inclusive of this third tender round, are currently in the tender process, with billions more in the pipeline.
Balfour Beatty PLC shares were Wednesday quoted down 7.0% as it closed the door on a proposed merger with Carillion PLC, stating that Carillion's revised proposal late Tuesday failed to address two key concerns it raised last week.
3i Group shares were Wednesday quoted down 1.8% at 385.06 pence.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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