Enron India Managing Director K Wade Cline told The Financial Express that the DPC had acknowledged MSEB's interest in minimising its payment obligations under the power purchase agreement (PPA) during the trial runs upto May end. "Under the swap power agreement, MSEB can continue to issue dispatch instructions in such a manner so that at least one of the phase-I gas turbine is operating at a minimum net export of 180 mw at all times. Furthermore, MSEB would further arrange to absorb not only delivered energy phase-I, but also delivered commissioning energy from block-B that is transmitted to the MSEB grid," he added.

MSEB sources confirmed that it had also agreed for such an arrangement and said that the heat rate during trial runs would be one and half times higher as the steam generated from gas turbine would be exhausted and not used for power generation. The high heat rate would only attract fuel charges and not fixed charges.

According to MSEB, the tariff during the trial runs would be Rs 4.5 without capacity charges. "Variable charges would be higher by 1.5 times," sources added.

MSEB sources said DPC had agreed for no dispatches from the phase-I turbines to adjust the power purchase bill at Rs 150 crore to Rs 180 crore per month during test runs.

On the third party sale, Mr Cline said the DPC would need the active cooperation from the MSEB as the entire transmission network is under its control. He expressed the DPC's inability to go in for the third party sale to Karnataka state without the MSEB's help.

Mr Cline said the Oman government which had made a huge investment in the Dabhol project expressed serious concern over the non-payment of monthly bills by the MSEB.

"A high-level Oman government delegation which held a series of meetings with us are worried over its investments in the present circumstances," he added.

According to Mr Cline, the Oman government is quite keen to supply nearly 80 per cent of the gas in the much debated MetGas project. "However, they don't want to take any decision at this point of time in view of the present scenario," he opined.

Similarly, Mr Cline has said the US government although is not involved directly, is quite concern over the present situation. "The message from the US ambassador and foreign affairs ministry is to find out solution on the Dabhol project especially when the US-India relations are at an all time high," he added.

Meanwhile, the DPC has extended a deadline for the payment of December bill of Rs 152 crore by the MSEB till February 25. MSEB has heaved a sigh of relief as the deadline set by the DPC after the invocation of state guarantee on February 6 had ended on Tuesday. "The payment by MSEB of the overdue November bill is a step in the right direction, as we look forward to discussions with the review committee as well as a quick payment of the overdue December bill," DPC said in a statement here on Tuesday.

MSEB sources said the board had time till February 25 and expresses hope that it could find a way to pay the bill before the stipulated date. DPC has already sent a January bill of Rs 127 crore to MSEB.

In a related development, a dispute panel comprising Mr Cline and the MSEB account member A Krishna Rao met on Tuesday for the speedy payment of around Rs 214 core towards delayed payment charges, interest and the pass through amount by MSEB to the DPC. DPC had served a notice to the MSEB in this regard as per the clause 20.2 of the power purchase agreement.