Ethiopia's Gibe III Hydro Project Slips Schedule

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The dam for Ethiopia's Gibe III hydro-electric project will not be completed in time to meet a September 2014 deadline to begin power production. Project developers planned for the dam to begin collecting water during the country's upcoming rain season.

Concerned about the delay, the Ethiopian Electric Power Service Enterprise Board and Deputy Prime Minister Debretsion Gebremichael called for an urgent meeting with senior executives of Salini Constrotti SpA (Rome, Italy), the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, and China's state-owned DongFang Chengdu, which is handling electro-mechanical work.

Construction of the dam, as well as electro-mechanical and power-transmission work, is being performed on a 24-hour-a-day schedule, according to sources. But the concrete filling work will not be completed on schedule. Other sources said the dam will be ready to collect water during the June-August rain season, although the plant will not be able to generate power in September 2014, as some government officials had said. No consensus was reached between Gebremichael and company executives on the possible revision of plans to make the dam ready for the coming rain season.

Adding pressure to the debate, energy industry specialists claim there are a number of industrial projects waiting to be launched with power supplied by Gibe III. They say that the government should identify other projects that could be finalized in a short period.

Gibe III is one of the three hydropower projects scheduled for completion as part of the country's "Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) 2010-15." The project was scheduled for completion at the beginning of the final year of the GTP, but will now only be ready at the beginning of the 2015 rain season.

The 1,870-megawatt (MW) project is located on the Omo River in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional state. The dam has a width of 670 meters and a height of 240 meters, and is listed among the major concrete dams globally. The project also includes the construction of two major tunnels.

For related information, see January 2, 2014, article - Ethiopia Splits State-Owned Power Utility, Contracts India's Power Grid Corporation.

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