DEMETER invests in Green Gas International B.V., a leader in methane gas management and utilisation for coal mine and landfill sites.
Green Gas International Ltd, a company that reduces harmful greenhouse gas emissions through methane utilisation and OKD, DPB a.s., a Czech coal-bed methane company owned by New World Resources B.V. (NWR) have agreed to merge and form Green Gas International B.V., The new joint
venture company has also raised € 15.5 million of additional equity capital. Green Gas International B.V. becomes a leader in methane gas management and utilisation for coal mine and landfill sites, bringing together development and financing expertise, a project pipeline and more then 30 years experience in methane capture and utilisation, as well as the ability to deal with projects under the Kyoto Protocol.
“Our new joint venture has a compelling offer for coal mine and landfill site operators. It provides a safe, commercially attractive and environmentally-friendly solution to their methane gas management problems. With the additional injection of new equity capital we are now uniquely positioned to develop our potential project pipeline of 350MW electricity generating capacity over the next five years” said Chris Norval, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Green Gas International Ltd , who will lead the new group.
NWR is the majority shareholder of Green Gas International B.V. with a shareholding position of approximately 70 per cent, former shareholders of Green Gas International Limited and Demeter FCPR own the balance of the shares.
Citigroup is acting as the sole advisor and placement agent to Green Gas.
For further information contact
Michel Ronc
Demeter-Partners
23, rue de l’Arcade
75008 Paris France
33 (0)1 43 12 53 33
michel.ronc@demeter-partners.com
Green Gas International BV (GGI), a company incorporated in the Netherlands, partners with coal mine and landfill site owners to cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions through methane mitigation. Where feasible, the methane is then converted into a clean energy source. With carbon traders, the company also delivers methane mitigation projects based on the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint
Implementation (JI), to produce valuable, tradable carbon credits. GGI has established businesses in Germany and in the Czech Republic with 450 employees and annualised sales of approximately € 50 million on a consolidated basis. It co-owns or operates approximately 133 MW of methane-based electricity generating capacity. GGI will continue to invest in DPB’s development of combined heat and power plants to generate
electric power from mine methane gas and has projects in development in the USA, Ecuador, Chile and Ukraine.
OKD, DPB a.s. was founded in 1960 to enable a safe working environment, free from gas and water problems, in the underground coal mines of the Ostrava – Karviná Coal District of what is now the Czech Republic. DPB controls a 130km pipeline through which it distributes some 70 million m3 of methane gas to industrial customers.
New World Resourclles B.V. is whoy owned by RPG Industries SE, a European company based in Cyprus, indirectly owned by Zdenek Bakala, a Czech-born financier and businessman, Crossroads Capital Investments Inc., a European private equity house that is focused on Central and Eastern Europe, First Reserve Corporation a US private equity firm specialising in the energy industry with USD 12.5 billion under management and American
Metals and Coal International, Inc, a privately owned mining and marketing company with interests in coal operations in the United States, Australia, South Africa, Venezuela, and China.
Demeter is a private equity fund dedicated to eco-industry and clean energies with an investment strategy focused on “expansion stage” investments mainly in France, Germany and Spain. The fund, closed in October 2006 at € 105 m level is managed by Demeter Partners with offices in Paris and Madrid and whose partners have both private equity and industrial backgrounds. Demeter-Partners has already made ten investments in France and in Spain, in the environment and renewable energies sectors.
For more information under DPB: www.dpb.cz
More information under Green Gas International: www.greengasinternational.com
