BANJA LUKA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), June 15 (SeeNews) – The government of Bosnia's Serb Republic said on Thursday it will shortly conclude a memorandum on cooperation in the construction of Buk Bijela hydro power plant (HPP) with China National Aero-technology International Engineering Corporation.
The government has authorised energy minister, Petar Djokic, to ink the memorandum, it said following its weekly session.
In June last year, a consortium led by the power utility of the Serb Republic and the entity's energy ministry signed a 50-year concession contract to build and operate the 93.52 MW Buk Bijela HPP on the river Drina.
At the time, the ministry said the project is worth 382.4 million marka ($218.1 million/195.5 million euro) and the HPP is expected to produce some 332.3 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year.
Buk Bijela will be Bosnia's largest HPP in terms of installed capacity, reservoir size and mean outputs, it was also said.
The Buk Bijela HPP project was postponed several times due to scrutiny by environmentalist organisations and NGOs from Bosnia and Montenegro who fear it will destroy the canyon of the Tara river which flows between the two countries.
The Serb Republic is one of Bosnia's two autonomous parts, the other is the Federation.
Founded in 1980, China National Aero-technology International Engineering Corporation is a large state-owned enterprise.
(1 euro=1.95583 Bosnian marka)