Union Es­tate Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, the 100 per cent own­er of pow­er gen­er­a­tion com­pa­ny Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU), said it has re­paid in full all monies ad­vanced to it by the Gov­ern­ment for con­truc­tion of the La Brea-based pow­er fa­cil­i­ty.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, chair­man David D'An­drade said TGU had utilised a se­ries of short-term loans to re­pay its full fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions to the Gov­ern­ment.

"TGU has re­paid its ul­ti­mate share­hold­er, GoRTT, all the ad­vances in­curred as debt for the con­struc­tion of the pow­er fa­cil­i­ty to­tal­ing US$554 mil­lion or $3.8 bil­lion Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars via a se­ries of short-term loan fa­cil­i­ties," he said.

TGU sourced the short-term se­cured loan fa­cil­i­ties from First Cit­i­zens Bank and Cred­it Su­isse to meet its re­pay­ment oblig­a­tions.

"Dur­ing the last year, TGU se­cured sev­er­al short-term loans, some in record-break­ing time, to meet the re­pay­ment of GoRTT's ad­vances, as re­quest­ed. The com­pa­ny ac­cessed a $960 mil­lion or US$150 mil­lion short-term se­cured loan fa­cil­i­ty from First Cit­i­zens Bank, fol­low­ing which TGU then ac­cessed a US$150 mil­lion or $960 mil­lion short-term se­cured loan fa­cil­i­ty from Cred­it Su­isse Bank, which was sub­se­quent­ly fol­lowed by a US$600 mil­lion or ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4 bil­lion short-term se­cured loan fa­cil­i­ty to re­tire the pre­vi­ous two short-term se­cured loan fa­cil­i­ties and com­plete the re­pay­ment of GoRTT's ad­vances in the time re­quired."

D'An­drade said for 2016, the com­pa­ny would pay an in­ter­im div­i­dend in ex­cess of $100 mil­lion to the Gov­ern­ment.

TGU has to date, paid Gov­ern­ment ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$222 mil­lion in div­i­dends.

The TGU pow­er plant, which was opened in 2013, gen­er­ates 720 megawatts of elec­tric­i­ty, 93 per cent of which goes to T&TEC via a pow­er pur­chase agree­ment (PPA).

With its re­pay­ment oblig­a­tions re­moved, D'An­drade said the com­pa­ny can be­gin to ex­plore fur­ther ini­tia­tives for growth and ex­pan­sion

"The com­pa­ny now has ex­pand­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for con­tin­ued con­tri­bu­tions to GDP and GoRTT's rev­enues with­out any fur­ther in­jec­tions of cap­i­tal (ad­vances) from the GoRTT. The com­pa­ny can now in­vest in op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance and IPP (in­de­pen­dant pow­er provider) cap­i­tal ex­pan­sion ini­tia­tives which can gen­er­ate (or re­tain at home) for­eign ex­change as it cre­ates ad­di­tion­al high val­ued jobs for na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.

An­dre Wor­rell