The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is considering a loan for 50% of the construction costs of Venezuela's US$1.2bn Tocoma hydroelectric project.
Venezuela’s planning and development ministry has asked the IDB to finance half the project to the tune of US$600M. A technical mission from the IDB has already visited the Tocoma site but negotiations for the loan are still very preliminary. Extensive environmental and social studies must be carried out before any decision is made, and the usual time to decide on a project of this size is 18 months.
The 2200MW Tocoma project is designed to generate 10,200GWh a year from 2012. Tocoma is 19km downstream from Edelca’s Guri plant on the river Caroni in Bolivar state.