Construction of a 335 MW Combined Cycle Power Plant in Siddhirganj is experiencing serious constraints due to a “major error” in its feasibility study report.
The project’s completion is now expected be delayed by at least 6 months from January, 2015.
The state-owned Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh (EGCB) has been implementing the project at Siddhirganj in Narayanganj with financing from the World Bank and the Bangladesh government.
Official sources said the Joint Venture of Isolux Ingenieria S.A. and Samsung C&T Corporation, a Spanish-Korean consortium, which obtained the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract, started work in August last year.
But following the start of the work, when the contractor went to do the heavy piling work, it found a huge “water body” at a depth of just 14 metres beneath the construction site.
Engineers found the depth of the waterbody itself to be as much as 5 metres, and it emerged as a major constraint for the piling work.
“Now the contractor is removing the water before resuming the piling work,” said a senior official of the EGCB requesting anonymity.
Officials are now blaming the error in the feasibility study report, which a local company conducted before the start of the project’s work.
“A sub-contractor carried out the feasibility and first detected the presence of huge water flow to the 14 metre depth, but mistakenly did not mention it in its report,” said an EGCB official.
He also blamed the Isolux for not carrying out its own feasibility study before start of the construction work.
The EGCB signed a contract with its EPC contractor on 28 May, 2012 to set up the gas-based combined cycle plant.
Source: UNBConnect
