COAL

Deputy Treasury Minister Jan Buczkowski has announced that Poland has cancelled a draft deal with RWE, Marubeni and Electric Power Development Co.

The investors were going to take a 49 per cent stake in the 800 MWe Belchatow II lignite-fired power plant.

Guarantee for the project was to have been by a long-term contract to sell electricity to the Polish Power Grid. The Polish Treasury broke off the deal because it feared that the investors would insist on unrealistically high electricity prices.