News
Hectic bid to make Lakvijaya run again
The top management of China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) is still in Sri Lanka as efforts continue to get the Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant in Norochcholai running again.
The President, Vice President and General Manager of CMEC arrived in the country a week ago and will be joined today by a delegation from China’s Ministry of Trade. They are scheduled to hold talks with Power and Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi and will visit Norochcholai tomorrow.
The plant’s Unit 1 was shut down for repairs on January 10 for the third time in five weeks “due to high conductivity of boiler water”. This was the result of one of the 16,000 pipes transporting sea water to cool the plants springing a leak. This problem had occurred several times in the past, and CEB sources said 105 pipes were already damaged.
The boiler of Unit 1 has now been started, said M.C. Wickramasekara, Ceylon Electricity Board’s (CEB) Additional General Manager (Generation). “We have done the testing and repairs to the condenser,” he explained. “We are in the process of starting the turbine after monitoring the parameters.”
The defects in the pipes have been plugged, he said. The process of restarting the machine is being implemented gradually to ensure that there are no more faults. The Indian company that was hired to locate the flaws had completed its task and will leave next week.
Separately, the commissioning work of Lakvijaya Unit 2 is still continuing but it will still be some days before it starts commercial operations.
The Randenigala Power Station is operational again after more than two weeks. However, the Kelanitissa (combined cycle, 50 megawatts) is still under repair. Mr. Wickramasekara said. “We have placed an order for the spare part which will take about two to three weeks to arrive.”
In the petroleum sector, meanwhile, at least six unsolicited proposals to expand the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery are still sitting in Government files. There are two proposals each from American and European companies, and one each from Korea and China. An authoritative source said that India has also indicated an interest although a formal proposal has not been made.
The modernisation and expansion of the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery was due to have been done with Iranian funding and assistance but the agreement was cancelled due to US sanctions against Iran. The Government now needs fresh funding and chosen the option of unsolicited proposals. The estimated cost of the project is US $1.5 billion.
The basic formalities of the project are now over, authoritative sources from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation said.
“The project was found to be technically and economically feasible. The Environment Impact Assessment is in its final stage now, awaiting approval of the Central Environmental Authority. The Archaeological Impact Assessment was also done and approved by the Department of Archaeology.”
“Despite all this, the basic requirement, which is funding, is yet to come,” he said. Even if the project was to go to China, informed sources added, the CPC would encourage the Chinese to use technology, equipment and machinery of European standards to avoid a similar debacle to Lakvijaya.
Commenting on the recent breakdown at the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery, the official said it was not serious. “Any plant needs maintenance,” he explained. “When there is a failure, we replace the part and it continues.”
Others pointed out, however, that the existing refinery—which refines 50,000 barrels per day of crude oil—was built more than 40 years ago and that the present maintenance was insufficient. Once completed, the new refinery is expected to refine 100,000 barrels per day.
“It’s vital that we get this started,” the official said. “We will save around US $300 to $400 million that is now going to foreign countries. This means we can do several major infrastructure projects at once without borrowing a cent.”