A consortium led by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has won a contract worth about $1,500 million to build the 1,400-MW Afsin-Elbistan B thermal power plant, the state Turkish Electricity Generation & Transmission Corporation (TEAS) announced on 13 March (MEED 4:7:97). The other members of the consortium are the US/German Babcock Lentjes and local firms Gama, Tekfen, Tokar and Enka.

The plant will have four 350-MW generating units, fired by lignite from nearby reserves. The first unit is due to be commissioned in 2001, the second and third in 2002 and the fourth in 2003. Three other consortia bid for the scheme. They were:

Zurich-based ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Germany's Siemens, Japan's Nissho Iwai Corporation and the Anglo/French GEC Alsthom, with the local Guris, Dogus and Kutlutas

Austria Energy & Environment, Siemens, Japan's Toshiba Corporation with the local Nurol, Simko and Yuksel

the US' Stone & Webster and Steinmueller and Philipp Holzmann, both of Germany.

The project was originally planned to be executed on a build-operate- transfer (BOT) basis, but TEAS could muster little interest in the scheme. It will now be carried out on a conventional credit-financed basis.