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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGIXHP8ZR3C.html Jan 22, 2000 - 08:48 PM Cogentrix Walks Out of Indian Power Project The Associated Press NEW DELHI, India (AP) - U.S. electric power giant Cogentrix Energy Inc. has pulled out of a $1.3 billion thermal power project in southern India, a news report said Saturday. The 1,000-megawatt power project, one of the largest foreign investments in India, now will be managed solely by Hong Kong's China Light and Power International, which had been a 50 percent partner in the joint venture formed to execute the project, United News of India reported.

"CLP's share percentage will now rise to 100," Tom Watters, director for business development at Cogentrix, was quoted as saying by the news agency.

The news agency said Watters announced the decision Saturday to Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, the top elected official of Karnataka state, where the project is located. Cogentrix, based in Charlotte, N.C., had been working for seven years on the project.

Officials at CLP could not immediately be reached for comment. An official at the Cogentrix office in New Delhi confirmed that Watters met Krishna Saturday, but declined to give details. The official declined to be identified.

Cogentrix announced last month it was abandoning the power plant project because of legal disputes and delays in getting government clearances. But it promised to review the decision, and the government later cleared the way for the Cogentrix project by guaranteeing payment for its electricity.

The project ran into trouble when environmentalists filed a lawsuit alleging that noxious emissions from the power plant would destroy the biodiversity of the coastal region and that effluents released into the Arabian Sea also would cause harm.

India's Supreme Court last month cleared Cogentrix of any wrongdoing related to another lawsuit's allegations of cost padding, kickbacks and bribery.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 22, 2000