El Paso Corp. said Monday that it has closed the previously announced sale of its 50% interest in Korean Independent Energy Corp. (KIECO) to Korea Power Investments Co. Ltd. for $284 million. El Paso, which acquired an interest in the facility in 2000, will record a pretax gain of approximately $111 million on the transaction.

KIECO owns a 1,800 MW combined-cycle liquefied natural gas-fired power generation facility in the Republic of Korea that provides peak-load power to the city of Seoul.

The sale supports El Paso’s long-range plan to reduce the company’s debt, net of cash, to approximately $15 billion by year-end 2005. Since its mid-March update, the company has announced or closed $0.6 billion of its targeted $1.2-1.6 billion of asset sales.

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