The construction of the dams in Santa Cruz they were on the verge of paralysis due to the lack of the signature of the Addendum XIIa document that should be signed by representatives of Energía Argentina SA (formerly Enarsa), in charge of the work, and the contractors who are building the largest public works in the country.
With the Santa Cruz River Hydroelectric Exploitation Project, the aim is to start up the hydroelectric plants President Nestor Kirchner and Governor Jorge Cepernic, with an installed capacity of 950 MW and 360 MWrespectively.
Between the two plants, they will add an installed capacity of 1,310 MW, which will increase the total available energy generated by water throughout the country by 11.4%. The works also contemplate the construction of a 170 km Extra High Voltage line that will connect both generators to the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI).
The Néstor Kirchner dam will be located at survey 253 of the river, 170 km from the city of El Calafate, while the Jorge Cepernic dam will be located at survey 187, 135 km from the town of Comandante Luis Piedra Buena. The overall project will demand a investment almost US$5,000 million.
However, as they commented from the Temporary Union of Companies (UTE), made up of the national Eling Energía e Hidrocuyo and the company China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC)who They announced to Sergio Massa weeks ago that the company will disburse almost US$500 millions in the country at the end of June to finance the dams, that the signing of Addendum XII is delayed and that this delay would make it impossible to maintain the progress of the works.
Officials from Energía Argentina and the executives of the UTE should sit at the table because it is an addendum to the work contract, and it has nothing to do with the financing contract in charge of the consortium made up of China Development Bank Corporation, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) and Bank of China Limited.. Financing issues do involve the national government, through the Ministry of Economy, and the Chinese government, through state banking entities.
Last January some US$212 million to resume the flow of funds, which were added to the disbursement of US$287 million of the last week of 2022, although in that case they were intended to reimburse the advances made by the National Treasury to cover the delay in Chinese financing, in order to give continuity to the work.
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This medium was able to learn that the current progress of work on the Jorge Cepernic dam almost reached the 40%: It is planned to divert the river next year, begin filling in May 2025 and the first generation with the turbine -which is already on site- in December 2025. The Néstor Kirchner progresses more slowly, with a level of work of the 26%since it is the second priority of the project.
The document pending signature is the one that would be signed by the parties involved in the development of the project, in order to “compensate the damages and losses sustained, and the financial effort” performed by the contractor in the past, and that would have been for reasons that would have been unrelated to its plans.
“Without the signing of Addendum XII, the cost structures cannot be maintained”, alerted sources who know first-hand the work. The update amount claimed by the UTE has not yet been disclosed, but the warning has been made: the construction of the Santa Cruz dams would enter into a suspension until the financial economic situation is reversed.
Source: Ambito
