It is reported that ESSAR and TATAs figure in the list prepared by Nigerian authorities as candidate companies that qualify for picking up firms created out of Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

According to Nigerian daily 'THISDAY', Dangote Industries, Oando Gas and Power, Honeywell Energy Resources International, Actis Infrastructure, an Essar consortium and TATA Group are prequalified companies for the next stage of privatisation of successor companies of Power Holding Company of Nigeria.

Power Holding Company of Nigeria which monitors the African nation's power sector, was unbundled into 18 entities and, out of them, six are generation companies, 11 distribution firms and one transmission entity.

Nigeria's Bureau of Public Enterprises is handling the privatization process and, as per the report, it would sell six generation companies and 11 distribution firms by way of privatization and appoint a management contractor for the transmission firm.

It noted that Dangote, Actis Infrastructure, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, Marubeni Corporation, AES Corp and TATA were among 40 companies that had their bids pre-qualified for the controlling shares of hydro-generation companies.

The daily said an Essar consortium, Korean Electricity Power Corporation, Supertek and China Southern Power Grid were among 87 firms, whose bids had been pre-qualified for acquisition of thermal generation companies.

For the distribution companies, the report said that Oando Gas and Power, Honeywell Energy Resources International, ACA consortium and Energy Company of Nigeria - Negris Holdings were among the 80 companies who bid successfully.

The report further said last week the BPE, the privatization implementation agency, shortlisted 525 bids from a total of 929 bids it received from prospective investors for privatization of 18 successor companies of PHCN, the newspaper noted.

(Sourced from www.domain-b.com)