Centrica takes control

today boosted its power generation portfolio by increasing its interest from 60 to 100 per cent in Humber Power Limited, which owns the gas fired 1260MW South Humber Bank power station in North Lincolnshire.

Centrica will make a cash payment of £46.5 million to Chanter Petroleum, a subsidiary of Total. Total acquired its interest in 1997, as part of its expansion into the UK electricity market, which was in the process of being liberalised.

With the remaining 510MW of Humber Power added to its existing generation fleet and the output from the fixed price element of its Spalding tolling agreement, Centrica will now be able to access approximately 4GW of electricity output from its portfolio.

Centrica said in a statement that the deal is in line with its strategy of increasing the amount of gas and electricity it provides to customers from its own sources.

Sir Roy Gardner, Chief Executive of Centrica, commented: “The agreement is in line with our strategy to acquire high quality upstream assets, enabling us to generate a higher proportion of our own electricity requirements. This will be supported by further contracts and tolling arrangements as part of our risk management strategy.”