Chinese group wins approval for Bosnia power plant

The parliament of Bosnia’s autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation approved a Chinese consortium on as the preferred bidder to build a 450 megawatt coal-fired power generation unit worth 785.6 million euro. The consortium, which includes China Gezhouba Group and Guandong Electric Power Design, was the only valid bidder after Hitachi pulled out of the race.

The project at the Tuzla power plant in northern Bosnia is one of the largest investments in the Balkan country’s energy infrastructure, which needs upgrading as many of its coal-fired plants are past their prime.

”Now that we have the parliament’s agreement, we shall start the negotiations with the final bidder and expect to sign contracts over the next two months,” said Elvedin Grabovica, the general manager of Bosnia’s top power utility EPBiH.

Grabovica told parliament the new unit at the Tuzla plant would remain fully owned by EPBiH, as well as its capacity and output. EPBiH is majority-owned by the Federation government. He said the consortium will contract French and German engineering groups Alstom and Siemens to provide the equipment. China’s Exim bank would finance 85 percent of the project and EPBiH the remaining 15 percent.

The Tuzla plant currently has six units and produces around 3,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity a year.

Source: Reuters