BTU Power Completes Acquisition of Majority Interest in Tunisia's Carthage Power Company

Paris, France — May 20, 2004

BTU Power Company announced today the completion of its acquisition from PSEG Global, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, of a 60% equity interest in Carthage Power Company ("CPC"), the Tunisian special purpose company which owns and operates a gas-fired power generation facility in Radès, Tunisia with a total capacity of 471 MW.

CPC is 40% owned by Marubeni Power Holdings BV, a subsidiary of the Marubeni Corporation, a leading Japanese diversified industrial and trading conglomerate with numerous international power projects in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

CPC, Tunisia's first independent power project, began operations in 2002 and provides more than 20% of national electricity generation capacity. Power from the plant is sold to the state-owned Société Tunisienne de'Electricité et d ("STEG").

In addition to its 60% equity interest, BTU Power Company will also operate the plant, through BTU STEAG O&M Services Company, together with CPC's own staff of highly qualified Tunisian professionals who have pioneered a distributed maintenance system that is first of its kind in the industry. BTU STEAG O&M Services Company is a joint venture between a BTU Power Company affiliate and STEAG encotec GmbH of Germany established to manage and operate power projects acquired or developed by BTU Power Company in the Middle East and North Africa.

Wael Almazeedi, Chief Executive Officer of the BTU Group, underscored the acquisition's importance: "CPC will become a building block of our energy investment program for Tunisia. We believe that Tunisia is uniquely positioned to become an energy service center for North Africa: it has a technical skill base that rivals some countries in Europe, a well-educated middle class society, a transparent business environment, and it possesses an investment grade sovereign rating. Few countries in the Middle East and North Africa can match these characteristics."

BTU Power and its affiliates (collectively the "BTU Group") were established in 2001 to capitalize on the deregulation and privatization of the energy and energy-related industries in select Middle Eastern and North African countries. In addition to acquiring operating assets in the power, oil, gas, petrochemical, and related industries, the BTU Group develops greenfield and brownfield project opportunities. The BTU Group's shareholders include leading publicly traded companies and institutional investors in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The BTU Group operates out of offices in Burlington, Mass., USA and in Dubai, UAE.

Financial terms of the sale were not released.