In July 2009, Coastal Energen, an associate company of C&O has finalized the $800m financing to construct a 1,200MW coal fired plant in Tuticorin from the State Bank of India.
The company has informed that the project is a merchant power plant and it does not hold any sales contract for the term of the project debt and would sell electricity through offtake agreements as a commodity.
Ahmed Buhari, founder and president of C&O, said: “This is the first power plant in India to get financing for a merchant plant model. Raising that level of financing for a merchant plant was not an easy thing to do in these times when credit is tough. But the banks were satisfied. C&O will no longer be just a trader but an integrated and diverse energy supplier. It’s no longer enough to merely trade coal.
Annually C&O markets approximately 6 million tons of imported coal and has supply agreements with major producers in Australia, Indonesia and South Africa.
