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August 2010 
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North America Set For Major Geothermal Tie-up |
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Muazzin Mehrban, July 2009 |
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(16 July 2009)
Four major North American producers of geothermal energy have said they plan to combine, in order to better appeal to the growing investor interest in geothermal energy. Polaris Geothermal, Western GeoPower, GTO Resources, and Ram Power said they planned to raise up to $90m through consolidating.
The majority of shares in the new company will be held by Polaris shareholders, who will take up a 54.1 percent stake. Western, which centres its activity on the US market, will occupy 29.2 percent, while Ram will assume 15.4 percent and GTO just 1.3 percent.
Analysts believe the companies are looking to create a geothermal group with similar scale and diversity to industry giant Magma.
Speaking to Reuters, Ram chief executive Daniel Schochet said, “there is the realisation that renewable energy has moved into the mainstream of the utility industry. In the western part of the United States, the renewable energy that is most sought after is geothermal.”
The benefit of geothermal energy over wind and solar energy is its ability to remain consistent, unlike the other two which are intermittent. The new company, yet to be named, will have geothermal projects spanning all development stages from exploration to production.
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