The main power utility PPC may carry out a double sale in 2018 – a 17 perccent share of the utility under the control of TAIPED, the state privatization fund, as well as unit sales – if a market test, scheduled for this coming autumn, produces clear-cut results enabling the swift preparation of a sale package of carbon-fired units, pundits have told energypress.

If so, the sale package of carbon-fired units will be prepared and TAIPED’s 17 percent will be applied to the remainder of PPC’s asset base.

Otherwise, should the market test fail to produce an adequate level of investor interest, hydropower units will need to be added to the package and a new market test would need to be staged, which would probably delay the privatization of PPC’s 17 percent controlled by TAIPED until 2019.

“Anything that provides clarity to a complicated bundle such as that of PPC positively impacts the privatization schedule, and, on the contrary, anything that strengthens the vagueness delays it,” a sector authority told energypress.

This source explained that the progress of either alternative could only be stopped by political obstacles, adding this is highly unlikely as the government now appears determined to fully implement bailout measures without delay, as has been the case in the past.