The Guyana Cabinet on Thursday gave the go-ahead for the construction of a 300-megawatt natural gas power plant that is expected to cut electricity bills in half.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali announced in a Facebook live video that CH4/Lindsayca, which was one of the five entities that submitted bids in September, was given government’s nod.
He said negotiations will now start with the expectation that a contract will be executed before the end of November.
“The Government of Guyana, via Cabinet, today issued its no-objection to the ranking of CH4/Lindsayca as the number one ranked group to build a 300 MW combined cycle power plant and natural gas liquids (NGL) Plant at Wales, West Coast Demerara (WCD), under an Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) Contract,” he said, adding that Power China was ranked number two by an evaluation team.
“Cabinet’s no-objection will now allow negotiations to proceed to conclude an EPC contract. Power China . . . may be engaged if negotiations fail to conclude a contract with Lindsayca by the end of November.”
President Ali said the project is expected to deliver power at less than half the current costs. Project generation costs, taking account of payment for the pipeline, operations and maintenance, and capital cost recovery, will total less than five US cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
“This is a significant movement forward in Guyana – not only achieving energy security, but us achieving an important benchmark that is a reduction in our energy costs so that our manufacturing and industrial development and expansion can take place and so that the ordinary families and the ordinary people can feel a substantial reduction in the cost of electricity in their pockets and in their household.
“Just for reference, a family at the end of this project that now pays GY$20,000 per month in light bill or electricity costs will see that costs coming down to GY$10,000,” he said.
Earlier this year, nine firms were publicly pre-qualified to bid on the EPC contract. At the closing date of September 13, five bids were received.
President Ali said the bids were evaluated for technical compliance and ranking by Stantec and Worley, two global engineering firms with expertise in oil and gas. Based on the reports of these international firms, an evaluation team of three people, including a representative of Exxon, was appointed.
“The evaluation team performed the evaluation in accordance with the technical and economic criteria set out in the RFP. On the basis of the bids submitted and clarifications received, the Evaluation Team unanimously ranked CH4/Lindsayca as number one, and Power China as number two,” Ali explained.
He said key considerations in the evaluation took account of the expected date of delivery of the 300 MW power plant by December 2024. Both top-ranked companies confirmed that deadline.
The EPC contract will be supervised by a global supervision firm. The selected supervision firm is Engineers India Limited.
CMC/
