KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) has confirmed yesterday that it has been offered a 25% stake in 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) Jimah East coal-fired plant.

“We were offered some stake and we are doing due diligence,” TNB president and chief executive officer Datuk Seri Azman Mohd told reporters after its annual general meeting and extraordinary general meeting yesterday.

The management has yet to make a decision on whether to take up the stake as it needs to complete its due diligence process, he said, adding that he does know how long the process will take or when it will be presented to the board for deliberation.

At end-February this year, 1MDB won the RM11 billion, 2,000mw coal-fired power plant project known as 3B in a controversial open tender. Since then 1MDB has also secured a 50mw solar project on a direct award basis.

Subsequently, The Edge weekly had reported, according to sources, that 1MDB had offered a stake in 3B to TNB.

On the possible delay of the project after 1MDB requested for a six-month extension for the completion of the two-unit plant — the first unit is scheduled to be completed on Nov 15, 2018; the second unit on May 15, 2019 — Azman said the project is under the purview of the Energy Commission and that TNB is only the off-taker.

“The commission has to ensure that if any projects are delayed, there must be some other alternative,” he said, noting that the commission has to decide on what the next course action of should be and if that could mean an extension of existing power plants or building another new plant altogether.

On the status of the RM7 billion undersea cable project for the Bakun hydroelectric dam to transmit electricity from Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia, Azman said the project is still on TNB’s radar, though it is not likely to start in the next five years as there are still technical issues to be ironed out.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 19, 2014.