JAY – The town expects to be first in line to be paid back taxes of nearly $1 million when the bankruptcy of Androscoggin Energy Center LLC is settled, Town Manager Ruth Marden said last week.
Androscoggin Energy, a natural gas-fired power plant that provided steam to International Paper and electricity to the power market, remains shut down after voluntarily filing for bankruptcy in late 2004.
The managing partner of the cogeneration plant, Calpine Corp. of San Jose, Calif., is hoping the shutdown is temporary, according to spokesman John Flumerfelt.
He added that the 150-megawatt cogeneration center shut down after Thanksgiving and voluntarily filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.
The plant, located at International Paper’s Androscoggin Mill site on Riley Road in Jay, is jointly owned by Wisvest Corp. (66.7 percent interest), Calpine Corp. (32.3 percent interest) and International Paper (1 percent interest), Flumerfelt said from his Boston office.
It sold steam to IP, which supplanted the use of heavy No. 6 oil to operate the paper mill’s power boilers, and electricity to the power market before it shut down.
When the project was introduced in 1997 to the Jay Planning Board, it was hailed as an environmental effort to reduce the sulfur dioxide emissions from IP’s power boilers at its paper mill.
The power plant went on line in January 2000.
The bankruptcy filing is site-specific to Androscoggin Energy, Flumerfelt said, and does not affect any of the companies’ other assets, including Calpine power plants in Rumford and Westbrook.
Androscoggin Energy’s employees, about 15 of them, are still working at the Jay plant, Flumerfelt said.
The plant is in a state of readiness to start up again if the bankruptcy court proceedings allows it to do so, he said.
From Calpine’s perspective, Flumerfelt said, the company would prefer the plant to be up and running profitably.
Androscoggin Energy paid its annual air emission permit fee of $32,973.24 to the town on Jan. 3, Jay Environmental Code Enforcement Officer Shiloh Ring said.
But the plant is past due on its taxes owed to the town.
Jay Town Manager Ruth Marden said Jay is first in line to get money under the bankruptcy proceedings.
The town values the plant’s building at $7.8 million and its personal property at $106.9 million.
Currently, the first half of the plant’s 2005 tax bill is past due: $65,220.83 in real estate taxes and $891,417.90 in personal property taxes. Those taxes were due Oct. 1, 2004.
The plant’s second payment of taxes is due on April 1: $63,736.60 in real estate taxes and $870,974.20 in personal property taxes.
Comments are no longer available on this story