International contractors are preparing to submit bids by mid-September for the contract to build a new barrage and hydroelectric station at Naga Hammadi, on the Nile in Egypt.
The client is Egypt’s Public Works and Water Resources Ministry, which has divided the works contract into four separate lots.
The civil works (Lot 1) will include the construction of a low head powerhouse; a gated sluiceway; a double navigation lock; river excavation and protection; and the rehabilitation of the existing head regulators.
The hydro mechanical equipment (Lot 2) will include radial gates, sector gates, mitre gates, stoplogs, cleaning machines, gantry cranes, an overhead crane, lifting beams and hoists for the sluiceway, lock, powerhouse and head regulators.
Lot 3 covers the supply and installation of four direct-linked, double-regulated bulb turbines, generators and excitation equipment. The turbine runners will be about 6.8m in diameter, the range of the operating head will be 4.2-8.0m, and the turbines’ maximum discharge will be 420m3/sec. The generators will be rated at 19 MVA.
Lot 4 embraces the supply and installation of electrical equipment for a 64MW powerhouse and a 220kV switchyard, and for the sluiceway and navigation lock.
The tender documents were prepared by a consultancy group of Germany’s lahmeyer International, Switzerland’s electrowatt Engineering Services and Sogreah of France. Germany’s state export credit agency, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) is providing a concessionary loan of US$127M for the Naga Hammadi scheme and a grant of US$4.2M for environmental protection measures.
The scheme will raise the Nile’s water level behind the barrage by half a metre and KfW is also financing a drainage scheme and a project for the sanitation and protection of houses. The European Investment Bank has agreed a loan of US$76M.
Work will is due to begin in 2001 and should be completed in 2006.