French state-owned EdF, architect and 35 percent owner of the 1,070 megawatt Nam Theun 2 dam project, said in July it would pull out of the project by December to consolidate assets and focus on Europe.

A Statkraft spokesman said that the Theun-Hinboun Power Company, owned 20 percent by the Norwegian group via its subsidiary Nordic Hydropower AB, is looking into whether it would be interested in EdF’s position in that project.

But spokesman Ragnvald Naero denied a report that Statkraft was directly in talks with EdF to discuss buying some or all of its stake, saying it was a matter for Theun-Hinboun Power.

“This company…is checking whether the rights that EdF are willing to sell are of interest to the company — not Statkraft directly but the company in which we are a partner,” Naero said.

Statkraft’s partners in Theun-Hinboun Power Company are Electricite de Laos with 60 percent and Thailand’s GMS Power with 20 percent.

He said that the Nam Theun 2 project was potentially interesting to Theun-Hinboun because the project is close to Theun-Hinboun’s 210-megawatt hydropower plant in central Laos.

“So I guess there are some synergies,” Naero said Communist Laos, which has a one-quarter stake in the Nam Theun 2 project through Electricite de Laos, has demanded a formal confirmation of the pullout from EdF by the end of this month so it could look for a new partner.

Other partners in Nam Theun 2 — Indochina’s biggest dam project — include
Thailand’s second biggest power generator Electricity Generating with 25 percent and Thai construction group Italian-Thai Development with 15 percent.

EGCO’s parent company, state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, is to be the sole foreign buyer of power from the dam.

STATKRAFT LOOKS OVERSEAS Statkraft SF, Norway’s biggest electricity producer, began looking for new prospects in Asia and other parts of the developing world in the
mid-1990s as Norwegian hydropower resources have been almost fully exploited.

Statkraft intends to put its Asian and other overseas operations, which include a majority stake in a 60-megawatt Nepalese unit, into Statkraft Norfund Power Invest AS (SN Power), owned 50/50 with state investment firm Norfund.

Naero said that any further investment in Laos would also be done via SN Power if the company chose to go ahead with it.

“The world needs energy, especially in parts of Asia and Latin America, so we see commercial possibilities in these continents, but it is a risky business,” Naero said.

“That’s why we have formed the joint venture with Norfund, and with this company aim to reduce risk and to have more muscle if we find projects that are commercially interesting,” he said.