New US$36M Vreed-en-Hoop power plant…GPL paying $10M monthly to truck fuel across Dem. River

Jan 05, 2016 News

It appears that Guyana’s largest power plant may finally get the use of its multi-million-dollar wharf facilities.
The delay in the operationalising of the wharf, at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank

The US$36M Vreed-en-Hoop power plant will soon get the use of its wharf, thus cutting the need to truck fuel across the Demerara Bridge.

Demerara, had seen the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) forking out more than $120M over the past year to private truckers to transport fuel across the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
According to David Patterson, Minister of Public Infrastructure, GPL paid up to $10M monthly for trucks to fetch the fuel from the Kingston plant to the new US$36M facility.
The new 26-megawatt plant became operational in December 2014.
However, a nearby wharf, budgeted for $242M, remained incomplete when the plant was commissioned in February last year. The wharf has pipelines running from the Demerara River where it is located to several large storage tanks.
GPL has blamed the tricky land around the power plant and the wharf as being reasons for the delays.
In the beginning, engineers under-estimated the number of piles needed to build the foundation for the plant. It went to almost 800 piles from a few hundred.
A critical test of the wharf, which was conducted in mid-December, went well with 15,000 barrels of fuel pumped into the tanks.
However, the vessel was grounded because of poor dredging in the area, made worse after the tide turned.
According to Minister Patterson, the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) has been engaged to dredge the area with the expectation that by mid-month, the wharf will be fully operational.
He said that Government is not looking at this time to penalize BK International, the contractor, for the delays as it appears that unforeseen problems on the ground were to be blamed.
Already, GPL has reduced the number of trips by the trucks in anticipation of the wharf’s full operation.
The wharf is critical for fuel boats from Suriname to pull alongside, but inspections by experts from that country had reportedly advised that more piles need to be driven in the Demerara River to further stabilize it.
Because of weight restrictions, the fuel trucks have been forced to take only quarter of a tank on the more-than-ten trips across the Demerara Harbour Bridge daily.
There were fears that any unfortunate incident with the bridge forcing its closure would have crippled the new plant, in the absence of the wharf being in operation.
The plant has been key to boosting and stabilizing GPL supply with the power being distributed as far as Berbice through an inter-linked system.
The wharf contract was reportedly awarded to BK International back in June 2013.
The entire power plant project itself was delayed by almost two years, sending costs up to US$36M.
GPL had signed a US$26M contract with Wartsila, a Finnish company that has several engines across the country, since entering the Guyana market in the 1990s.