This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/24/swedens-vattenfall-faces-delay-in-german-coal-sale-sources-say

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Sorry - this page has been removed. Sweden's Vattenfall faces delay in German coal sale, sources say
(about 2 months later)
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. Swedish utility Vattenfall is facing delays in the planned sale of its brown coal assets in Germany, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said, pointing to concerns over a proposed coal levy that could threaten any deal.
Memos to potential buyers were originally meant to be sent out in April, the people said, adding this was now expected only later in the year and may take until the end of the European summer.
For further information, please contact: “The deal is delayed, on hold,” one of the people said.
Vattenfall, which is scheduled to present first-quarter results on 28 April, declined to comment.
Scandinavia’s biggest utility last year announced plans to divest roughly 9,000 megawatt (MW) worth of lignite-fired plants in eastern Germany, responding to mounting writedowns on past acquisitions that pushed it deep into loss.
The company, which posted an after tax loss of 8.3bn SEK (£630m) for 2014, has said it aims to complete a deal this year.
The major stumbling block to Vattenfall’s sale proposal is political uncertainty about the government’s plan to slap a new levy on carbon emissions that looks set to drive older coal-fired plants out of the power market.
Economy minister Sigmar Gabriel seeks to achieve this by putting penalties on old and highly polluting plants.
This applies to parts of Vattenfall’s brown-coal fired installations, because burning brown coal, also called lignite, produces the highest CO2 output of any type of electricity generation.
Putting a price tag on the assets is therefore tough, two of the sources said. They may be valued at up to €3.5bn (£2.5bn), but the figure could be dramatically lower, depending on how the political framework for lignite in Germany plays out.
So far, Czech energy groups CEZ and Energetický a Prumyslovy Holding (EPH), via its German Mibrag unit, have publicly expressed interest in the plants.
Concerned it was on track to fall short of its target to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020 from 1990, the Berlin government last December approved a climate package assigning a further 22m tonnes of emission cuts to the coal sector.