Bosnia: Construction of new TPP Tuzla 7 unit uncertain, negotiations with Gezhouba China

Published on 7. January 2016., SEE Energy News

Bajazit Jašarević, director of „Elektroprivreda BiH“ EPBiH said that the construction of Block 7 in TPP„Tuzla“, worth 667.8 million euro, which should be financed by China Development Bank’s money has come to a standstill, while the level of investments in this block has also been reduced.

He clarified that there is a huge currency risk in this job for the Federation and EPBiH considering the contract signed with the Chinese, the “Gezhouba Group Company Limited” Consortium CGGC which won this deal on a tender.

We are facing difficulties because the loan is in dollars, and the contract we have is in euro. Because of the currency risk we are not able to proceed with this project – says Jašarević.

He thinks that both sides Bosnian and Chinese are looking for a solution for this part of the problem.

-We are looking for a solution how to ensure ourselves from the currency risk, which means that due to dollar –euro relation in the financial market that is hard to predict, we are currently at a stanstill in negotiations. This is a very complex issue – Jašarević says.

European equipment

Jašarević claims that the equipment will be european when it comes to construction, and that the investment will be reduced for 63 million euro.

-It has come to the reduction of the investment because we are using part of the existing unit in TPP „Tuzla“ for Block 7 which caused the 63 million euro reductio. That means that the investment will be smaller so the loan will be smaller too. But we have yet to see what happens – says Jašarević

450 MW Capacity

Block 7, that is supposed to be constructed, should have 450 MW capacity. If it is not built in time, TPP „Tuzla“ will have 215 MW capacity, which means that the Federation will have a small amount of electric power for the consumers, transmits Serbia-energy.eu