Coal-supply contract between NB Power and Venezuelan firm Carbozulia was never signed

A coal-supplying contract between NB Power and Venezuelan firm Carbozulia was never signed, Energy Minister Jack Keir said yesterday. Keir came under Opposition fire in the legislature over reports that NB Power had been burned by a Venezuelan state-owned company after it reneged on a deal to supply the utility with coal earlier this year. 'You would think that this government would learn from its past mistakes,' said Riverview MLA Bruce Fitch. PDVSA left NB Power without an Orimulsion fuel supplier after the public utility spent hundreds of millions renovating the Coleson Cove power plant in 2002 without a signed contract. This situation is completely different, Keir said. NB Power put out a request for proposals for the coal-supplying contract, but there was no single respondent who had enough supply, so an award was given to five companies, he explained. One of those was Carbozulia. NB Power sent out a contract to each of the five, but Carbozulia was the only one that did not sign.