Raising of La Gogue dam

Raising of La Gogue dam

25-August-2017



Partners sign procurement of civil works


The contractor mobilisation phase for the raising of the La Gogue dam is underway. The signing for the procurement of the civil works for the project to raise the level of the dam was held yesterday afternoon at the Electricity House conference room, Roche Caïman, between Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) and contracted bidder, Sinohydro Corporation Limited based in Mauritius.
La Gogue dam will be raised by six metres to increase the water storage capacity by 60% or by 600,000 m3 (from 1 million m3 to 1.6 million m3) and it will cost R185 million.
It was the chief executive of PUC Philip Morin and Sinohydro Corporation Limited representative, Lin Zhou, who signed the agreement. This was in the presence of the principal secretary for energy and climate change Wills Agricole and the principal secretary for environment Alain Decomarmond, members of the PUC management and other representatives of Sinohydro Corporation Limited.
Addressing Mr Lin, CEO Morin said it was pleasure for PUC to finally sign the project, two years since its conception.
“It is a very important project for Seychelles. The whole of Seychelles will be watching us to see how much progress we make, how successful we are with pushing ahead with the project, it is therefore important and we expect from Synohydro a solid type of performance and effectiveness in raising the dam of La Gogue,” said Mr Morin, noting that PUC will help and stay alongside Sinohyro for the success of the project.
He thanked Sinohydro for taking interest in the project and for the confidence of doing business with PUC.
For his part Mr Lin said said through the project, Sinohydro and PUC will work on mutual trust and confidence, and he assured of a very good result.
Talking to the press, CEO Morin said he expects the work to be of high quality and once finished with water being taken from Rochon and Mount Simpson, the La Gogue dam will have a better performance than at present. With regards to disaster during construction, CEO Morin assured all that the risk of a disaster that could affect residents who live below the dam is zero.
“Firstly, the La Gogue dam has been designed to be increased at a later stage and secondly there is no big river that brings water in the dam apart from two small streams and water flows into the dam through two big pipes from the Rochon and Mount Simpson rivers and they are controlled by valves that can be shut down if we want to control the flow of water in the dam. We will also install detectors to show and inform us if something is going wrong with the dam and I don’t think we will arrive at this stage. We will also install on the pipes a system that will allow us to drain the dam if there is a necessity to do so,” Mr Morin explained.
He added that more importantly, PUC staff will also be present on the scene to monitor the construction work and will be helped by Studio Pietrangeli, an Italian company specialised in dam construction.
With regard to water distribution during the construction phase, CEO Morin said this will run as normal up to April 2019 as water has to be reduced at that stage during construction and for further evaluation and investigation on the dam during construction, water will be gradually reduced lower to ease the process.
“But we will have water in the dam that will be distributed and if there is not enough water or the water can’t be used, we have other alternative plans to use water from other regions for distribution and if we encounter problems, the last option will be to use the desalination plants,” added Mr Morin.
The fact that PUC has installed water tanks in some regions to help with adequate water distribution, CEO Morin reminded everyone that they have a scheme in place where they give out interest free loans for installation of water tanks for treated water or rain water harvesting which can help people to store adequate water.
Founded in 1950s, the SInohydro Corporation Limited is well known as China’s first brand in hydropower construction, responsible for 65% of the large and medium-scale hydropower stations in China. After 60 years of expansion and development, Sinohydro has become a global enterprise, running diversified businesses from water infrastructure, dam construction, mining, hydropower, power and real estate.
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Sinohydro (Chinese: 中国水电; long form: 中国水利水电建设集团公司) is a Chinese state-owned hydropower engineering and construction company. In the 2012 Engineering News-Record Top 225 Global Contractors, a ranking by annual revenue, the company is 14th by overall position, and 6th among Chinese construction companies.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinohydro

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