DRAX Power Station, Europe's biggest coal-fired plant, lost more than £21 million in the first nine months of last year, the Evening Press can reveal today.

The latest figures sent shockwaves through the electricity-generating industry and prompted a top level meeting at Drax to stem the unprecedented losses.

Only a few years ago, when the station was owned by National Power, the plant was recording regular profits of around £200 million a year.

But new American owners AES have been badly hit by the £30 million-a-year running costs of flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) equipment, and £146 million-a-year interest charges after buying the station for £1.8 billion.

New national electricity trading arrangements, known as NETA, have also added more than £20 million a year to the station's operating costs.

Drax bosses said they were not on a level playing field. They argued that the new electricity trading rules did not give any advantage to cleaner plants over dirtier stations, despite the higher running costs of FGD.

Electricity prices had also fallen by 25 per cent because of the introduction of NETA and an over-capacity in the power market.

The station's business leader, John Readshaw, said today that about 40 AES bosses from around the world had held a recent brain-storming session at Drax in an effort to get back in the black.

One of the cost-cutting ideas was to burn American petcoke, which was half the price of coal.

Mr Readshaw said: "Everything possible is being done to reduce our cost base and become profitable, but it's a very uphill struggle.

"It was a different business under National Power. They didn't have to borrow money to buy Drax and their profit figures didn't include overheads."

Selby district councillors have just voted unanimously to oppose the burning of petcoke, claiming it poses environmental and health risks.

They have also written to Energy Minister Brian Wilson asking for changes in the electricity trading rules so Drax is not disadvantaged by its FGD costs.

The council's assistant chief executive, Mike White, said: "We sympathise with Drax's predicament but we aren't convinced that petcoke is the right solution."

Updated: 15:17 Monday, February 18, 2002