An unidentified Indian company is behind the $20 million sale of the mothballed Marsden B Power Station, with the 250 megawatt plant likely to be reconstructed on the Indian subcontinent. State-owned enterprise Mighty River Power has confirmed it has sold the Marsden Pt power station for $20.4 million to an Indiancompany. The buyer will dismantle the plant and ship it overseas, where it will likely be rebuilt to run as an oil or coal-fired station. A Mighty River spokesman said the buyer and deconstruction programme could not be made public because of a confidentiality agreement with the company. The spokesman said Mighty River would retain ownership of the Marsden B site but "it's still under review as to exactly what we will do with it". The sale has closed a chapter in New Zealand power-generating history that never really began. Marsden B has had a troubled history after it was commissioned as part of then prime minister Robert Muldoon's "Think Big" project. The 250-megawatt oil-fired Marsden B was built in the late 1970s and mothballed in 1978 without being used. In 2005, Mighty River announced plans to refire the station using coal but the plan sparked mass public protest and drew a record 4000-plus public submissions, with almost 95 per cent opposed. The company withdrew its application for resource consent in 2007 after the matter was to go to the Environment Court. Mighty River got ownership of Marsden B, and neighbouring Marsden A, following reform of the electricity industry in 1999. The sale is of the power station and the plant and equipment contained within. The buyers will leave the site down at concrete level, with Mighty River retaining ownership of the prime coastal land at Marsden Pt. The spokesman said it would likely cost several hundred million dollars to get Marsden B supplying power again. Marsden A station was closed in the 1990s.
