TURKEY: Another FGD unit tender in December

04 November 1994
NEWS

Permission from the government has been given to the Turkish Electricity Board (TEK) to invite tenders for another contract to install a flue-gas- desulphurisation (FGD) unit at a thermal power plant fuelled by lignite. However, approval is still awaited on the award of an FGD contract at the Kemerkoy plant.

Tender procedure may start within the next two months for the unit at the 600-MW Yenikoy plant. The cost will be around $80 million, based on the prices of a similar scheme for the Yatagan plant. All three plants are in the south-western Mugla region. The FGD units are required to clean the pollutants from the smoke of the poor quality and slow-burning lignite.

TEK is still awaiting a go-ahead from the prime minister's office to award a contract for the Kemerkoy scheme. The Environment Ministry has not yet delivered a verdict on the controversial project in Gokova bay on the Aegean.

The bay is in an area of natural beauty attracting tourism, and there have been environmental protests against the power station. Two of its three 210-MW units were commissioned earlier in 1994 by Poland's Elektrim, which was awarded the project in 1984. The $85 million contract to install the FGD unit has been awarded to a venture of the local Gama with Canada's Babcock & Wilcox International, but has not been signed (MEED 17:6:94).

It is the last contract in a series that otherwise has escaped a review of development spending by the treasury because of the economic crisis. Contracting sources say that about $1,000 million has been spent on the plant, which will supply around 40 per cent of the power for the region. The scheme was approved by the government in 1983 on the condition that environmental protection would meet stringent standards.

Most of these conditions have been complied with, apart from the FGD unit. The Turkish Electricity Generating & Transmission Corporation (TEAS) plans to keep the plant on stand-by to meet generating shortfalls elsewhere. However, demand forecasts indicate substantial new capacity will have to come on-stream before the second half of the 1990s if the country is not to suffer power cuts again.

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