Spanish minister in Panama to end US$1.6b canal row

PANAMA CITY: A Spanish cabinet minister launched mediation efforts in Panama on Monday to resolve a US$1.6 billion dispute threatening to halt the expansion of the Central American nation's vital canal.
Public Works Minister Ana Pastor held separate meetings with Panama's president and executives of the Spanish-led consortium that has threatened to stop the project this month unless local authorities pay for the massive cost overruns.
After the two meetings, Pastor said the Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC) consortium wanted to negotiate a way out of the impasse.
"The commitment of GUPC is to resolve everything within the contract and for that reason they will sit down for dialogue," she said.
"We are trying to reach an agreement that will be good for everybody," Pastor said after talks with Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli.

Martinelli said the consortium and the Panama Canal Authority need to find a solution, even if it means going through international arbitration.
"Surely solutions will be found within the meeting. This is a project of global scope for Spain, Panama and the maritime community," he said.
Pastor met first with 16 GUPC executives, including the head of Spanish builder Sacyr, Manuel Manriquez. She will meet later with canal authority officials.
"The Spanish government will not support Sacyr with money. This is an issue between a company" and Panamanian authorities, Spain's ambassador Jesus Silva told reporters.
The construction group, which includes Impreglio of Italy, Belgium's Jan de Nul of Belgium and Constructora Urbana of Panama, warned on December 30 that it would suspend work in 21 days if authorities failed to pay for extra "unforeseen" charges.

• The expansion project aims to make the 80-kilometre (50-mile) waterway, which handles five per cent of global maritime trade, big enough to handle new, giant cargo ships that can carry 12,000 containers.

• Currently the canal can handle ships large enough to carry 5,000 containers.

The United States built the canal between 1904 and 1914 and had full control of the waterway until handing it over to Panama in late 1999.
The consortium began work on a third set of larger canal locks in 2009 and expects to complete construction in June 2015, already nine months over the contractual date. Work is about 70 per cent complete.
The overall cost of the project has been estimated at US$5.2 billion.
A year ago, GUPC demanded that the Panama Canal Authority pay the extra US$1.6 billion for the extra costs.
Sacyr says the extra charges are related to technical and geological matters, cement ingredients, weather conditions as well as tax, labour and financial issues.
Jose Pelaez, in charge of building the third set of locks, said Saturday that the rising price tag was partly due to problems in the regional geology that the Canal Authority had not detected.
On Sunday, the Panama Canal Authority said that the contractor's claims "have no legal standing and are not clear," and are not reason enough to halt the project.
"We're being cornered," canal administrator Jorge Quijano said, adding that Panama cannot become "hostage to a contractor."
Canal officials say there was already a four-month delay shortly after the project began caused by the reversal of a GUPC plan to use lower-quality cement.
Moreover, the consortium had "14 months before submitting their bid to closely study the components of the project" in order to submit a "solid" bid.

- AFP/ac

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/international/spanish-minister-in/945276.html

7/1/14

Japan to start building world's biggest offshore wind farm this summer

Japan is to start building its ambitious wind farm project off the Fukushima coast in July. The farm is expected to become the world’s largest and produce 1GW of power once completed in 2020.
­The power-generating facility will be built 16 kilometers off the coast of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was critically damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The 143 wind turbines, which are to be 200 meters in height, will be built on buoyant steel frames stabilized with ballast and anchored to the continental shelf.


Once completed in 2020, the project will generate 1 gigawatt of renewable electrical power. 
The project is part of Japan’s national plan to increase renewable energy resources following the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. After the quake, Japan shut down its 54 nuclear reactors, but due to energy shortages it has had to restart two reactors.
“This project is important. I think it is impossible to use nuclear power in Fukushima again,” project manager Takeshi Ishihara of the University of Tokyo told New Scientist weekly magazine.
Ishihara believes the area's seismic activity won't be a problem for the turbines. His team has carried out lots of computer simulations and water tank tests in order to verify the safety of the turbines in all possible extreme events, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons.
"All extreme conditions have been taken into consideration in the design," he added.
There were some objections to the project by local people, who expressed concerns, in particular, over possible impact on the fishing industry, which was also hit by the nuclear disaster. But Ishihara is sure it’s possible to turn the farm into a ‘marine pasture’ that would attract fish.

Facility specifications of forward project. (Image from Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Farm Demonstration Project, Takeshi Ishihara The University of Tokyo)

 

The project is also part of the prefecture’s plan to become completely energy self-sufficient by 2040, using only renewable sources.  
The Fukushima wind farm will produce double the amount of energy of the Greater Gabbard array, currently the world’s biggest, off the coast of Suffolk in the United Kingdom, which generates 504 megawatts from its 140 turbines. Although the title of biggest will soon pass to the London Array in the Thames Estuary, where 175 turbines will produce 630 megawatts of power when it becomes operational later this year.
Scientists and researchers believe Japan’s wind capacity could reach 7.6 gigawatts over the next three years.
.rt.com
19/1/13
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