Japanese funding totalling $517.7 million has been signed up for a 1,400-MW gas-fired plant near Bursa. The contracting consortium for the plant is headed by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The funding package includes $409.7 million in export credits to be extended via the Export-Import Bank of Japan (Jeximbank), and $108 million in commercial financing arranged by Mitsubishi Bank.

The consortium also includes Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation and Itochu Corporation, and the local Enka. It was awarded the contract on 9 December after a tender competition which excited controversy because the consortium's low bid was nearly half the amount it offered in direct negotiations with client Turkish Electricity Generation & Transmission Corporation (TEAS) in 1994 (MEED 8:12:95).

However, the rapidly expanding industrial city of Bursa in northwest Anatolia urgently requires the plant, having a generating shortfall of about 800 MW at present. Work on the first, 700-MW combined-cycle unit is to be completed in 30 months, and subsequently in 32 months on the second.

The plant will consume about 1,700 million cubic metres of natural gas annually.