“THE road is a critical part of the project, and obviously having the road on time and to the specifications required is very important to the project,” says Senior Vice President of Sithe Global Group Rafael Herz. Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, Herz, project manager of the Amaila Falls Hydro project, said having access to the site and at the time required is critically important and having the specifications allows equipment to move to the site.
“Sithe’s interest and collaboration with the government with respect to the road is to help as much as we can to ensure that the road does continue its path of construction with the timeline requirements and with the specifications that are needed. We are confident that this will be achieved,” he said.
He said that while the road was expected by next summer, the project makes allowances for some delay, since there may be other factors that may slow things down, such as financing.
Speaking to members of the media at the conclusion of the press conference Tuesday, President of Synergy Holdings Inc, Makeshwar ‘Fip’ Motilall, said there was a little bit of a delay in the start-up of the road-works for the hydro project.
“The Construction Notice to Proceed was given on sections 1 to 5. Sections 6 and 7 are the virgin sections, and we actually only got the go ahead on that in January. What that means is that it has reversed our mode of operation completely. We were going to do the virgin sections first to create access and then we were going to do the other sections,” he explained.
Motilall said that La Nina has really been “kicking butt” and this hampered the works on the ground. “We are on schedule for getting access by August,” he said.
Asked whether he can complete the road with the US$15 million contractual sum which was lower than the engineer’s estimate for the road works, Motilall said, “We went into this because we wanted to build the hydro. Sithe became the developer now. Some 14 years of my life was spent on this project. I did not [see] this project as a project for profit. It is not like I [want] to make a loss either. I looked at it and decided to forego the usual 25 to 30 percent mark up on the project. I took a risk as a contractor to do that,” he said.
“I think we can do it. Right now, I think we are on schedule. Within the next few weeks we will have a media day [so that the media can see how far the project has gone],” he said.
Asked how much he has been paid so far for the road construction, Motilall said 25 percent. He said that there is a mobilisation payment with which the company was not only able to do the mobilisation, but also some of the early groundwork on the site. “Government has not been funding this project. As I get done, I submit invoices, Ministry of Public Works approves them and the Ministry of Finance, and I get paid,” he said.
The project site is situated in a remote location, about 200km southwest of Georgetown, at the confluence of the Amaila and Kuribrong rivers.  It will consist of a new 165MW hydroelectric facility, access road, and 270km high voltage transmission line to deliver electricity to Guyana Power and Light’s (“GPL”) network for distribution. Expected to operate in excess of 50 years, the project will be transferred to GPL, at no cost, 20 years after construction.