Thermoblock B3 online no sooner than spring? - Looking for a new FIDIC engineer

PE Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) has announced a tender for consulting services of FIDIC Engineers on the TEKO B3 construction project.

- For objective reasons, there was a delay in the Project (new thermal block B3 in Kostolac), which, due to the exhaustion of the contracted scope of service with the current FIDIC engineer, who will perform this role in the 3rd quarter of 2024, will lead to the need to contract a new FIDIC service engineers - it was stated in the technical specification of the work estimated at almost 135 million dinars (about EUR 1.2 million).

Therefore, as stated, the expected start of this service is tentatively the last quarter of 2024.

As stated, the delay in the implementation of the works was due to the epidemic of the COVID-19 virus, as well as many other influences, partly as a result of "force majeure" and a number of other reasons. Accordingly, t is not currently possible to attach the existing term-plan realization of the Project, but it is possible to predict that the tentative completion of the project implementation activities based on the last submitted work plan by the contractor (the Chinese company CMEC) should not be longer than 6 months from the day of the start of the services defined in this tender documentation - the document states.
FIDIC engineer services under this contract is tentatively planned until the end of 2025, and the tender is open until September 6.

We remind our readers that the Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, said last month that functional tests are expected to begin before August around block B3 of the "Kostolac" thermal power plant, in order to carry out warranty tests.

It was said that the new 350 MW thermoblock, the first to be commissioned in Serbia since the early 1990s, will be online before the start of the heating season, i.e. in the fall.

The contract on the construction of block B3 was signed by the Government of Serbia and EPS with the Chinese company CMEC back in 2013. The works began five years later, and since then the deadline for their completion has been postponed several times.

B. P.

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

EPS

CMEC

TE Kostolac

TEKO B3

FIDIC engineer

deadline for putting TEKO B3 into operation

new thermoblock Kostolac

construction of TEKO B3