Thermal Power Plants and Open-Pit Mines Kostolac completed negotiations with Chinese partners to build a new thermal unit B3 and expansion of coal open-pit mine “Drmno”. The contract signing for these jobs is expected in September.
The new power plant of 350 MW should be completed in less than five years, and the extension for 42 months, or 1.5 years before the B3 unit activation.
These projects are part of the second phase of the arrangement, which is realized with the Chinese company CMEC, and the works value that will be carried out during the second phase is 715.6 MEUR, it was announced on the company’s website.
As it was pointed out, all contract elements for the second phase were agreed and signed. Project cost remained at the level from 2011, namely the same as those previously defined in the Framework contract agreement with Chinese partners.
The construction of a new B3unit of 350 MW will cost 613 million dollars, while in the expansion of the open-pit mine “Drmno” will be invested 97.6 million dollars.
After completion of the feasibility study and assessment study of environment impacts, the conditions for the final contract signing for the second phase will be acquired in September, for which there is a state guarantee given through Serbia budget projections for 2013, it is recalled in the statement.
The project with Chinese partners has two phases, and it was concluded on the basis of international agreement between Serbia and China.
Three years ago, in 2010, it was signed the Framework contract agreement, which was followed by the signing of individual contract for the first phase, whose realization is in progress.
The second phase also includes the new requirements related with the new adopted European regulation about gas emission reduction, and all standards are in line with the current regulations of Serbia, said Dragan Jovanovic, director of EC “TE- KO Kostolac” in Kostolac.
“I am especially pleased that this work was done by own forces of EPS and EC TE- KO Kostolac teams. For this work, we did not allocate resources for additional consultants and other advisory bodies, even though the contract is very complex” – said Jovanovic.
Deputy team leader in negotiations with Chinese partners, Nebojsa Misic, said that with the Chinese partners was made agreement that the equipment should be the best and mainly imported from China, originally from Europe and the world.
“The power plant should be completed in less than five years” – he said and added that it has been gone ahead concerning environmental protection requirements, because it was expected that this project would be applied when new, more stringent environmental laws became effective.
The annual coal amount required for supplying new B3 unit is about three million tons, wherefore it is necessary to expand the open- pit mine, and also the new ECS system and new power stations, said a member of the negotiating team Miroslav Ivkovic.
Part of the loan which is related to the equipment for the mine expansion will be focused, as he said, on the acquisition of modern ECS system, European manufacturers of mining equipment.
The plan is to complete the mine expansion in 42 months, or 1.5 years before the B3 unit activation, which will be enough for the discovery of new coal quantities for this unit. In the first phase it was completed two thermal units modernization in Kostolac, and the work on the construction of desulphurization system and the construction of supporting infrastructure is underway.
Source;Serbia Energy /EPS/TEKO
