- a boondoggle in Arizona: Abengoa, June 14, 2015
- yieldcos: the next big thing, May 9, 2015
- biofuels will bankrupt Abengoa, April 14, 2014
WND is now reporting that Abengoa, a solar-energy company in which the Obama administration "invested" billions has failed.
The collapse of a Spanish-based multinational renewable energies company could cause election-year embarrassment not only to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party, but also to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz and his wife Heidi, through their ties to Goldman Sachs. [I doubt anyone will be "embarrassed."]
Announced Tuesday, Seville-headquartered renewables multinational firm Abengoa plans to sell off four solar photovoltaic power plants in Spain for a collective value of $65.13 million, $57.26 million and a net cash flow of $13.9 million, helping the company meet its debt-restructuring targets set out in its feasibility plan.
The asset sale announced Tuesday comes after the company sold in February its 20 percent share in the 100MV Shams-1 concentrated solar power plant in the United Arab Emirates to the Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar.
The Abengoa selloff, which has included selling the company’s office headquarters in Madrid, is part of a non-strategic divestment plan announced after the company went into bankruptcy in November. The move is designed to reap approximately $112 million in operating cash to stay in business until December.
The bankruptcy, the largest in Spain’s history, was triggered after Gonvarri, an arm of Spain’s industrial group Gestamp, decided in November 2015 against a plan to invest $371 million into the company.
Last November, after the Abengoa bankruptcy was announced, the company’s bonds were “virtually worthless,” as its share price plummeted 54 percent in a single day.
Abengoa was a renewable energy company that scripted perfectly the Obama administration’s shift from carbon-based fuel, providing a European counterpart to the U.S.-based Solyndra.
Solyndra was earmarked for funding in the Obama “economic recovery” stimulus efforts that began in 2008 at the end of the George W. Bush administration after the bank failures and economic downturn occasioned by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.
Flashbacks/from earlier posts:Last November, Abengoa had received at least $2.7 billion in federal loan guarantees since 2010 to build several large-scale solar power projects in the United States. There was no certainty any of the government loans would be paid back amid a collapse that dwarfed the $530 million loss to the U.S. taxpayer with the collapse of Solyndra in 2011.
It was about two years ago when Bloomberg had an article suggesting that Europe was turning back to coal instead of natural gas.
Bloomberg is reporting: Europe is turning to coal -- instead of natural gas --
Natural gas-fired power plants accounting for almost 30 percent of Europe’s capacity are at risk of shutting or being mothballed as utilities opt to burn cheaper coal, according to the International Center for Natural Gas Information.At that same post, it was noted that Spain was turning away from solar energy:
When I think of Iberdola, I think of Spanish renewable energy. When you go to the wiki link on Iberdola, you will see why. I'm not going to go through all the numbers, but the general gist is that this is a company focused on renewable energy.
Oh, before we get started, a reminder: the unemployment rate in Spain is 26%. CNBC calls a rate of 26% "massive." I would tend to agree.
Okay, back to Iberdola.
For a company focused on green energy, it's surprising to see that it just signed with Cheniere for a 20-year supply of LNG for its customer base in the UK and Spain. [It was interesting to note that this was not only for Spain, but also for the UK. Remember, it is expected that the UK will run out of its own natural gas within three years.] FuelFix is reporting:
A Cheniere Energy subsidiary has agreed to a 20-year deal worth $5.6 billion to supply liquefied natural gas to Spanish power and generation company Iberdola.
