The sale of the ancient, toxic Vales Point power station by Trevor St Baker and Brian Flannery to a Czech coal company Sev.en Group virtually guarantees it will continue to inflict respiratory disease on the Hunter Valley for many years to come.
Vales Point can only operate courtesy of extraordinary exemptions from air quality standards, especially around its emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate pollution.
St Baker and Flannery acquired it for just $1 million from the NSW government in 2015 and will sell it for hundreds of millions in a fossil fuel payday that means Sev.en Group will expand its Australian presence beyond its Queensland coal-fired power generation assets.
Sev.en is controlled by Czech billionaire Pavel Tykač and operates from tax havens in Cyprus and Liechtenstein. Its business model is acquiring coal-fired power stations nearing the end of their lives and continuing to operate them, but only when electricity prices are high enough for them to profit. As the company explained in its 2020 profile:
Our strategy is complementary to major traditional operators who are often required to divest their conventional plants … As a private company, we are independent from external stakeholders’ pressure. We purposefully invest in conventional assets and have full command over the deployment of our own capital resources.
The company has a history of pressuring governments to curb regulations that inhibit the continued operation of coal-fired power stations, including lobbying for exemptions to air quality standards.
In effect Sev.en has based its business model on publicly listed and government-controlled companies succumbing to investor and lender pressure to divest themselves of coal-fired power plants and selling plants that should be shuttered. Sev.en, which has no investors to keep onside, keeps them operating, waiting for periods of higher electricity prices to bring them online.
While local coal-fired power owners are bringing forward the closure dates of their ancient assets, Sev.en has a business model for continuing their operation, and the toxic effects they inflict on local communities, for years to come.
The NSW government can expect a lot more lobbying to continue exempting Vales Point from basic air quality standards.
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Unaccountable to shareholders, investors, governments, ethical logic, the public or anything outside of greed. I suggest that the Greens get onto this in a big way.
Greens in Lake Mac and Central Coast have been onto it for years. How about Labor gets off its arse.
How about investigating why/how the federal government sold it for only $1,000,000 and yet here we are 6 years later and these guys are able to sell it for may millions – this stinks, Leppington Triangle style.
When are we going to get the snouts out of the taxpayer funded trough??
NSW government.
It does seem fishy.
Nothing fishy………….
……….St Baker is a big donor to the Liberal Party (and ex-candidate).
Was just a reward from St Gladys for years of service…………….
That’s the bit that killed me. They sold it?
Logic tells us the only way this could happen is if someone was bribed. Sans bribes or blackmail a decision maker would do the right thing and shut this one down. So here we are. Who do we call to sort this out?
Truly a bottom feeder and likely donor to both major parties.
Correct. Anyone that thinks the ALP are a million miles removed from their scumbag predecessors should unwedge their heads from the sand.
Well and truly captured by all the usual suspects and showing signs of hubris: with Dutton, Taylor and Ley leading the opposition you can’t blame them.
Actually no-you can.
Where is the Foreign Investment Review Board ? They will profit to the full extent possible with no consideration to Rules and Regulatory obligations (there is negligible enforcement, and pathetic penalties), employees, community and environment. They will manipulate markets and Government officials in whatever way possible to extend the profiteering. And when it’s finally done in 8 or 9 years they’ll just walk away and leave a big mess for someone else to clean up. Go Australia!