El Paso Merchant Energy has agreed to sell its 40% interest in its 700 MW Samalayuca II power plant facility in Mexico to another partner in the project, GE Structured Finance. No financial details were disclosed.

The plant is located near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, comprised of three 233 MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle units. The facility provides electricity to Mexico’s Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) grid for distribution to the state of Chihuahua. The plant was part of a venture begun by El Paso in August 1997, when it began construction of the 45-mile Samalayuca Pipeline Project at a cost of about $35 million. The pipe was completed in January 1998, and initial startup of the plant was later that year.

El Paso Natural Gas Co. and El Paso Energy International Co., both business units of El Paso, partnered with Pemex Gas Y Petroquimica Basica in the 50/50 joint venture agreement. El Paso built 22 miles of 24-inch pipe in the United States and 23 miles in Mexico to supply the plant, which has a capacity of 212 MMBtu/d. The pipeline transports natural gas from El Paso’s Hueco Compressor Station. The 23-mile Mexico portion of the pipeline, known as Gasoductos de Chihuahua, was the first privately owned and operated natural gas pipeline in Mexico. The pipe was the first in Mexico to be partly owned by a U.S. company. It is not part of the power plant sale.

El Paso said that the plant’s sale, expected by year’s end, will help it to achieve more than $3.7 billion in total asset sales this year.

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