This draft of the never realized TPP Banovići Block 1-350 MW project was made almost 15 years ago. The thermal power plant is designed to be built in the central part of the coal basin, located only four kilometres from the source of all the necessary resources and is thus isolated from the urban area of Banovići. The realization of the project was announced every two years.
The last promise was at the end of 2021. Should we remind you that the foundation stone has not yet been struck? A lot of money has been spent, but still the policy, for almost a decade and a half, maintains the same mantra.
Almost nine years ago (in 2014), SDA president Bakir Izetbegović promised at the SDA’s central pre-election rally, in front of about 20,000 citizens present, that “Banovići will get a state-of-the-art thermal power plant and that he feels a great debt to Banovići”. He repeated the same in 2015, promising a billion-dollar investment in Banovići.
Favorable to a Chinese company
Almost eight years later, all the contracts signed so far are being “cleaned up” for who knows how many times, where the contract regarding 85 per cent of financing was supposed to be initialled in China with the company Dongfang Electric Corporation Limited by the end of last year, as well as the contract related to for domestic banks. The contracts would go to the FBiH Government and Parliament for approval.
However, everything is already very late – as it has been for years, as it was also late in the very beginning, when the former municipal authorities, and the current one led by Mayor Beg Gutić, favoured this Chinese company.
We remind you that, in order to find a strategic partner for the realization of the project, RMU Banovići d.d. Banovići had to carry out an international public tender procedure through four stages, and in that procedure chose the favoured company Dongfang Electric Corporation Limited as the most favourable bidder (which was obviously favoured) and appointed as a strategic partner for the financing and construction of a 350 MW block. In November 2015, the Agreement on Strategic Cooperation and the Contract on Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC Contract) were signed under the “turnkey” system, worth as much as 405.3 million euros.
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RMU and Banovići today: They avoid meeting our team from the mine for a month, while they do not respond to emails from the Municipality
After all, the project was reactivated again in 2019 and the opening of TPP Banovići was announced for the end of 2021. However, we are already almost in the second month of 2023, but we are still waiting for the initialling of the contract in China, as well as the contract related to domestic banks, and the approval of these contracts by the FBiH institutions.
The President of the Municipal Organization of the SDP Banovići, Kadrija Modrić, was a member of the Federal Parliament from 2010 to 2014. He reminds that it was during this period that the FBiH Government (in 2010) passed the Decision on the declaration of public interest and access to the preparation and construction of power facilities in the FBiH.
With that decision, RMU Banovići was designated as the bearer of activities for the implementation of the Banovići TPP construction project, with a capacity of 350 MW. The list of qualified bidders included 11 companies, eight Chinese, one each from Spain and Russia, and a Polish-Chinese consortium. The chosen partner was expected to provide financing and construction of the thermal power plant Banovići, which will be 100 per cent owned by RMU Banovići, and the mine would repay the loan according to the conditions determined by the contract.
“Today, when we have already stepped into 2023, we are aware of the fact that there is nothing from that project. The question is why and for what reason the Chinese were chosen at that time when Bosnia and Herzegovina could implement the project within the framework of the European Union, through the most eminent bidders. However, they entered the story with the Chinese through the so-called Serbian lobby of Vuk Hamović and large electricity traders modelled on Rudnik in Stanari. So from this point of view, it was a project to master the energy system of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, says Modrić for Inforadar, with whom we spoke during our visit to Banovići.
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In the background, there was a plan for RMU Banovići to be completely privatized and come into the hands of various traders and brokers such as Hvlad