Canada’s SNC-Lavalin has awarded alstom a US$18M contract to supply and supervise the installation of three Francis turbines at the Chamera II hydro project in India. Work on the 300MW scheme is scheduled to begin in May 2002 and the units will be commissioned by May 2004.

The hydro turbines will be manufactured at the Alstom Power plant in Quebec, Canada. Alstom Power also supplied the turbines for the Chamera project.

US company Black and Veatch has been selected by the State Hydraulics Institute of Turkey to be responsible for the engineering, procurement and construction of two further hydro-electric projects. The plants are financed with the help of the US Export/Import Bank and other export credit agencies, according to an agreement between the US and Turkish governments.

Negotiations for the first plant, the 202MW, US$215M Kargi project on the Sakarya river west of Ankara, are now complete. Black and Veatch will lead an EPC consortium which includes two Turkish contractors and Austrian and Swiss equipment suppliers.

Scheduled for completion in 2005, Kargi includes an 84m high rockfill dam, intake structure, tunnel, penstock with surge tank, two Francis turbines and generators, power house and switchyard.

Black and Veatch is beginning negotiations on the second project, Eriç, which will be located in east-central Turkey.

Finally Atlas Copco Craelius, a division of the Atlas Copco Group, has received an order to supply 20 drill rigs. Worth US$11M, the rigs will be used for construction and grouting work at Iran’s Karoun III dam.