Chinese consortium to start building 450 MW TPP unit in Bosnia in Nov

"Now that we have received the letter of support from Bosnia's council of ministers and submitted it to China's Ex-Im Bank, we can say that the Bosnian side has fulfilled all formal and legal conditions for the start of construction of TPP Tuzla's Unit 7," the executive director for capital investment of Bosnian power utility Elektroprivreda BiH (EPBiH), Senad Salkic, said in a video file posted on the website of public broadcaster BHRT over the weekend.

Salkic said that China's Ex-Im Bank should next approve the validity of all signed contracts for the project, which is expected to happen in the coming month, or month and a half.

"We, being the investor, will officially hand over the construction site to the contractor on November 1, from which date the countdown to all deadlines in the project for construction of Unit 7 will begin," Salkic added.

In August 2018, the government of Bosnia's Federation entity, which owns EPBiH, said it will provide a guarantee for the 614 million euro ($678 million) Ex-Im Bank loan, which will cover 85% of the project cost.

The total cost of the project is estimated at 722 million euro.

Unit 7 is expected to produce 2,756 GWh of electricity per year.

At present, the Tuzla plant has an installed capacity of 732 MW, producing some 3,600 GWh of electricity on average per year and consuming 3.3 million tonnes of coal.

The Federation is one of two autonomous entities that form Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other one is the Serb Republic.

($=0.905812 euro)