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For the consideration of £11.50 (so far), I have received the
following information from Companies House regarding Offshore
Energy Resources Limited (OERL), who are apparently partners with
TXU, "the ninth largest energy company in the world," in the
proposed windfarm off Balcary Point:

Company incorporated 30 January 2001
"The liability of the members is limited.
The Company's share capital is £2 divided into 2 shares of £1
each."

One share taken for and on behalf of
Instant Companies Limited
1 Mitchell Lane
Bristol BS1 6BU

One share taken for and on behalf of
Swift Incorporations Limited
1 Mitchell Lane
Bristol BS1 6BU

Witnessed by
Glenys Copeland
1 Mitchell Lane
Bristol BS1 6BU

The company's annual report, made up to 30/01/2002 has apparently
been filed quite recently. (it was listed as 'overdue' on
01/05/2002)
It cannot yet be accessed. (but will in due course...)

As of 01/05/2002:
The Company Office is at 1 Fleet Place, London EC4M 7NR
The Secretary is:
Mr Steven George Downs, appointed 30/01/2001
a British national with an address in Surrey.
There are two Directors:
Brian Caffyn, appointed 02/02/2001,
an American with an address in Rome
and
Ian John Sharpe [sic], appointed 30/01/2001,
A British national with an address in Essex.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention for those who don't already
know, TXU is from Dallas & has grown from nothing to a turnover
of £20 billion ($28 Bn) in less than two decades.

Actually it's Solway Offshore Ltd,
a wholly owned subsidiary of TXU Europe,
a wholly owned subsidiary of TXU
which wants to build the carbuncle......

Does anyone remember ENRON?
Oh Yeah! Enron is the source of the turbines, but now they're
owned by GE (US), who have a turnover of £90 BILLION ($130 Billion)
Ain't life sweet?
--
To put the bounty and the health of our land,
our only commonwealth, into the hands of people
who do not live on it and share its fate
will always be an error.
For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that.
--Wendell Berry

As to whether there is ANYONE local involved??? (or even Scottish?)
No sign, but LOTSA MONEY!.
Borrowing billions through a company off the shelves of Swift
Incorporations Ltd.

A google search reveals that
Ian J Sharpe, a director of OERL (one of two), apparently works
for Manweb: (See below for more. It appears he works for Babcock & Brown)
MANWEB Plc.

Contact: Ian J. Sharpe, Head of Energy Resources
Address: Kingsfield Court
Chester Business Park, Wrexham Road
Chester CH4 9RF
Phone: +44 1244 652812
Fax: +44 1244 653154
Email: customer.service@manweb.co.uk
WWW: www.manweb.co.uk

and just one of the dozen results of a search for Brian Caffyn,
the other director (He's been a busy boy!):
From the Cape Cod Times Dec 16th 2001:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2001/dec/16/windfarm16.htm

[A little way down, emerges the name of Brian Caffyn.]

Cape Wind Associates President Gordon is no
stranger to power plants. As president of Energy Management
Inc., in Boston, Gordon owned all or parts of five natural gas plants
in New England.
He sold them last year for a reported $250
million, a figure he would neither confirm nor deny in a recent
interview.
Cape Wind Associates is a joint venture of
Energy Management Inc. and Wind Management Inc. of Boston, a company
that has
developed wind power projects in Italy and
the United States. That corporation is headed by Brian Caffyn, son of
former state Rep. Nancy Caffyn, of Sandwich.
Together, the two corporations have financed
some $1.5 billion in energy projects here and in Europe, Gordon
said.
He is unfazed by the project development cost
of between $5 million and $10 million and a price tag of $500
million to $700 million for its eventual construction. The target
construction start date is April 2004.
"Typically we go to institutional equity and
debt markets" for funding, he said, ticking off major banks and pension
funds as investors.
Gordon said a conservative construction time
estimate would be 18 months, meaning the wind farm could be
producing energy sometime in 2005.
That assumes Cape Wind Associates clears all
the state and regional review hurdles and finalizes agreement on a
land site for its underwater cable.

I can now reveal that for the further sum of £4 I have obtained
OERL's first annual report, which reveals little:
The directors remain the same:
Mr Caffyn's nationality: US, occupation: "Wind Energy"
Mr Sharpe's nationality: British, occupation: "Financier"

But the shares formerly owned by Swift Companies and Instant Incorporations have changed hands:

Babcock & Brown Operating Partnership LP
2 Harrison Street, San Francisco,
California, 94105, USA
and
IVPC Energy BV
20 Drentenstraat
1083 Hlc Amsterdam
Netherlands

From the B&B website:
Babcock & Brown specializes in originating,
structuring, arranging and managing large
asset-based and project-based financings and
acquisitions. The company was founded in 1977
and currently employs more than 440 people in
20 offices around the world. In 2000, the firm
arranged financings of more than US$25 billion.

Effective January 1, 2000, Bayerische Hypo- und
Vereinsbank AG acquired 20% of the company,
the remainder of which is owned by the principal
officers and directors of the company.

Babcock & Brown typically acts in one or more
of the following roles: 1. Adviser to borrower,
developer, lessee, manufacturer, project sponsor
or seller 2. Adviser to acquirer, lender or lessor 3.
Asset manager for lessors, purchasers or lenders
4. Funds Manager 5. Underwriter, largely in
connection with aircraft and rail operating leases
and Australian and UK real estate 6. Originator
and/or principal in acquisitions, generally
involving asset-based or financial services
companies.


From the website of IVPC's wholly owned Italian subsidiary:
(it seems they do contribute to local economies...IF arms get twisted?)

IVPC Srl and its sister company IVPC4 S.r.l, (together
refered to as IVPC) have tried to listen and to acknowledge,
with great sensibility, the signals coming from the outside
world, by pursuing environmental and social integration.That
is why IVPC has looked carefully at the landscape and the
communities which live there, and it built its wind farms in
full respect of the principle of sustainable development.

IVPC was formed in 1995 by the UPC Group of companies
("UPC").
UPC personnel had extensive experience in the U.S. with
wind energy development, ownership and operation.
Avv. Oreste Vigorito has been the Managing Director of IVPC
and its subsidiary companies from inception and has
become a partner with UPC in its Italian activities. Avv.
Vigorito has continually provided the IVPC companies with
strong Italian and local management experience.
IVPC is currently owned 50% by UPC and 50% by Tomen
Power, a Japanese company which is a world leader in wind
energy.
IVPC 4 is currently owned 50% by UPC and 50% by Edison
Mission Energy, a U.S. company which is a world leader in
independent energy and has a large US utility business
(Southern California Edison).

The availability shown to the administrations of the
municipalities, to the land owners, to the jobless youth, to
the world of sport and to the needy, with a series of concrete
interventions and donations, has meant that the inhabitants
of the towns have shown their preference and consent to
IVPC, to the point that they act as "guardians" of the wind
farms and they consider the wind farms as something of
their own.

Thanks to agreements with the local towns, which IVPC
decided to enter into on its own accord, IVPC pays 1.5% of
its gross electrical sales revenues to the towns. This
amounts to a very significant and much higher percentage of
our "profit" and represents our belief and commitement to
make the towns our partners in the economic success of
these wind parks. IVPC also provides a secure income for
the owners of the lands where the wind farms are located, at
a rate many times in excess of the rate received by the
crops (or grazing area) which would have otherwise been
planted in the areas where the wind turbine is located. This
is a new crop in a very real sense for farmers trying to
maintain a traditional farming life.

Perhaps most important to the local people, IVPC and its
related companies are providing many good paying, skilled
work opportunities for local labour, with-over eighty people
hired over the last four years full time and long term. This is
in addition to the numerous construction jobs on a local level
and of course the employment at the turbine manufacturer in
Taranto.

From an esthetical point of view, technology and architecture
compete to make systems that observe standards of
introduction on the landscape in the least bulky way
possible. In the case of IVPC, for example, the electric
cables in the windfarms have been laid underground instead
of on poles. IVPC utilizes "lattice" type towers which
reduces there visual impact on mountain top locations as
they are more transparent to the eye than solid tubular
towers. The "lattice" towers also blend in with the
surrounding environment in a more suitable way due to their
similarity to other structures in the area. Even the selection
of colours (white and off-white for turbines, grey for towers)
and the spacing of the wind turbines help to make a "wind
turbine landscape" softer to look at, and of agreeable visual
impact and of harmonic integration with the territory where
they are installed.

Further tilting at windmills: Grants for Destruction Don Quixote Rides Again Welcome to the Third World What Sort of Folk are the New Neighbours? What is Appropriate in a Scenic Area? Shady Dealings Windfarms Italian Style

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