Datang International Power Generation Co Ltd, the second-largest Chinese power generator listed in Hong Kong, will buy a power company to boost its capacity.

 

Datang will pay 1.82 billion yuan to buy a Hong Kong company that owns 55 percent of Jinzhou East Power, the Beijing-based company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.

 

"Compared with building new power-generating facilities, the deal is an easy way for Datang to boost its generating capacity, and the price is reasonable," Datang Power said.

 

Jinzhou East Power operates six 200-megawatt generators. The total assets of the company stood at 1.68 billion yuan by the end of 2006.

 

Shares of Datang Power on the Hong Kong stock exchange climbed 5.68 percent to HK$7.82. The company's shares in Shanghai rose 9.99 percent to 13.54 yuan.

 

Net profit of Datang Power in 2006 was 2.7 billion yuan, up from 2.36 billion yuan the previous year, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday.

 

Its main business earned 24.84 billion yuan in revenue, up from 17.99 billion yuan in 2005, said the statement.

 

Last year, the company raised 3.34 billion yuan in a Shanghai initial public offering. It plans to expand its capacity in areas including Guangdong Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

 

China's electricity giants apart from Datang Power have also sped up work on new facilities. China Huaneng Group, the nation's largest power producer, plans 325.1 billion kilowatt-hours in 2007, with new installed capacity reaching 10,000 megawatts.

 

China's total installed electricity-generating capacity surpassed 622 gigawatts in 2006, up 20.3 percent from 2005.

 

The electricity industry has seen rapid developments in past years, with the proportion of coal-fired power plants rising in tandem, according to the China Electricity Council. Coal-fired plants now account for over 77 percent of the total installed generating capacity.

 

China is accelerating efforts to close small coal-fired units run on outdated technology that use excessive energy. The nation is also trying to adjust its power mix, hoping that clean energy such as hydropower and nuclear power will make up 35 percent of the total electricity supply by 2010.

 

(China Daily April 3, 2007)