THE construction of Asia's largest coal-fired power plant Tanjung Bin is progressing slightly ahead of sch-edule with 55% of the work completed.
Zelan Construction Sdn Bhd deputy managing director Joseph Chong, who is also the project director, said the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors Sumitomo-Zelan Consor-tium was expecting to commission the first of the plant's three 700MW generating units by October 2006.
The second and third units would be commissioned on February and August 2007 respectively.
“Meticulous planning accompanied by detailed execution plans on every aspect of the civil construction were undertaken before physical work began in December last year,” he said when briefing Works Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu who visited the project site in Pontian yesterday.
Accompanying Samy during the visit were Public Works Department (PWD) director general Tan Sri Zaini Omar and Malakoff Bhd managing director Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.
Tanjung Bin is currently the largest private infrastructure project in the country and Zelan with Sumitomo Corp were awarded the RM5.1bil EPC contract in July last year.
Zelan's portion of the contract, consisting mainly of civil and structural works, is valued at RM1.37bil.
The coal-fired power plant has a net generation capacity of 2,100MW and is owned by Tanjung Bin Power Sdn Bhd, a Malakoff subsidiary.
The construction of the power plant, one of the largest independent coal-fired power plants in Asia started in August 2003. Chong said that prior to the Tanjung Bin project, Zelan had participated in the construction of one power plant in Singapore and 13 power plants in Malaysia or nearly half of the total 14,000 MW generating capacity currently available.
Zelan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tronoh Consolidated Bhd, is a construction and civil engineering group listed on Bursa Malaysia. – Bernama
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