Slovakia has agreed option to buy more of Slovenske Elektrarne: Prime Minister

The Slovakian government has agreed with Italy's Enel to take an option on buying a further 17 percent stake in the main Slovak power utility Slovenske Elektrarne as part of the Italian group's sale of its majority stake, Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Sunday.
Enel agreed on Friday to sell its 66 percent stake in Slovenske Elektrarne to a privately-held Czech-Slovak energy investment group EPH in a two-stage deal currently valued at 750 million euros ($815 million).
Enel will get 150 million euros in the first stage which will give EPH 33 percent, with the second part of the deal only taking place after the delayed expansion of the Mochovce nuclear plant is completed, possibly three years from now.
The Slovak state, already a 34 percent shareholder in Slovenske Elektrarne, will have six months after the completion of the Mochovce project to decide whether to raise its holding to 51 percent, leaving EPH with 49 percent.
"When Enel decided to sell 33 percent of its share to another firm, we fully used this decision to strengthen the position of the state," Fico told reporters.
Representatives of the government, Enel, and EPH are due to comment on the details of their agreement in Bratislava on Monday.
EPH has a history of cooperation with the Slovak government. It already runs Slovakia's Eustream jointly with the state, controlling the pipeline that ships Russian gas via Ukraine to western Europe, and shares ownership with the government in another electric utility.
The take-over of Slovenske Elektrarne adds some 5 gigawatts of nuclear, hydro and thermal power generation capacity to its central European assets.
However, the cost of building the two new 470 megawatt units at Mochovce has jumped to 4.6 billion euros from an original 2.8 billion and construction has been delayed for several years.