EPM rejected the Chinese consortium’s offer to complete the Hidroituango works

On Saturday February 18, we learned that Public Enterprises of Medellín (EPM) rejected the offer of the only consortium that came forward to complete the work of hydroituango. The offer was made by Chinese companies Powerchina International there Yellow River and the Colombian Schrader Camargo.

The decision was recorded in a report on the analysis and conclusions of the Group EPM in which it is specified that one of the members of the Ituango PC-SC Consortium “did not meet the experience requirements set out in the specifications”.

In the EPM statement he received The Colombian you can read:

“The offer presented by the ITUANGO PC-SC CONSORTIUM is rejected, since the national member Schrader Camargo SAS does not fulfill the participation requirement established in point 2.2.7.-Experience-, of the Special Conditions.”

In the latest calendar made public by EPM It was expected that the contract would be awarded in March 2023, but now this scenario remains uncertain, as the company will have to start the process from scratch. On December 7, 2022, the day the door for submitting bids was closed for good, the only bidder who showed up was the Ituango PC-SC Consortium.

According to this document, production units 3 and 4 would be commissioned this year and units 5, 6, 7 and 8, located in the south wing of the hydroelectric plant, are still awaiting construction.

According to Medellin City Hall, each Hidroituango generation unit is fed through a conduction tunnel that begins in an excavation, where all eight catchments are located. “The tunnels are equipped with shut-off valves, installed in vertical shafts near the water intakes.”

The objective of hydroituango is to produce energy for the whole country. To achieve this, the engineers had to divert the Cauca River, the second largest in the country. In this sense, it is planned to have an underground power plant with 2,400 MW of installed capacity and 13,930 GW hours of average annual energy.

In September 2022, the Antioquia media revealed, in a journalistic work, that the main problem of the Colombian-Chinese Consortium It was because he was looking to win the final phase of Hidroituango, without having the constructive experience of his Colombian partner.

“The intense search for a local partner that we have been conducting for more than three months has not been successful (…). Many local businesses that we explore tell us that they are not interested in participating in this project and/or that they do not comply with the experience requested in the specifications,” he said. . Yellow River in a letter of June 2022.

It should be noted that the hydroelectric reservoir is 79 kilometers long, the same distance between Bogotá and Melgar or between Medellín and Santa Rosa de Osos, and treats a volume of 2,800 million m3 of water, at the maximum level of operation.

It is necessary to remember that the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation announced a preliminary investigation against Mayor Daniel Quintero, and the director of EPMJorge Andrés Carrillo, for alleged omissions in taking out comprehensive insurance during the construction project. hydroituango in 2021.

According to the Public Ministry, the President and the Executive did not omit the purchase of a policy for the project and for this reason it was requested to analyze the evidence of the event. In turn, the opening of an investigation was also notified against the mayor for alleged irregularities in the execution of the contract of the project.