News About Fascinating Projects - December 2006 2006
- $5B Russian Nuclear Power Project gets Green Light in Bulgaria
- China to Finance & Build Major Rail Project in Nigeria
- Committee for Data-Gathering Project for National Economic Development Planning Inaugurated in Abuja, Nigeria
- Space Shuttle Discovery Launch Set for December 7
$5B Russian Nuclear Power Project gets Green Light in Bulgaria
A Russian firm, Atomstroyexport, has won a contract to build a nuclear power plant by the River Danube at Belene in Bulgaria. The two 1,000-megawatt reactors will cost 3.9bn euros (£2.6bn; $5.1bn). The Russian firm, in which Russian energy giant Gazprom has a 49% stake, will work jointly with France's Areva and Germany's Siemens. Atomstroyexport's tender for the project beat a bid from Czech giants Skoda by 1 billion euros.
The two 1,000 megawatt light-water reactors would join the existing installations of the same output capacity upstream on the Danube, at Kosloduy. The first unit at Belene is planned to be ready in six-and-a-half years. An earlier Belene project was frozen in 1991 amid environmental concerns. The Belene plant will use two third-generation water-cooled VVER-1000 reactors.
Bulgaria's government had previously invested more than $1 billion in the project to build two 1,000 megawatt nuclear units at the Danube port of Belene, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Sofia. The project was frozen in 1990 after environmentalists said it could pose a safety risk. The project was revived last year to compensate for the closure of two aging units at the country's only nuclear plant in Kozloduy, which the Balkan country agreed to shut this year under its entry treaty with the European Union.
Bulgaria, set to join the European Union in January, agreed to close four Soviet-designed reactors in Kozloduy. The two oldest reactors (in photo at left) have already been shut down. Decommissioning of the old nuclear reactors was a condition for EU accession talks.
Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko said the Belene deal marked "Russia's return to the European market of nuclear technologies". Environmental group Greenpeace, however, criticized the choice of the Russian company as "fast and cheap, and concludes that that is a bad basis for nuclear safety, as well as economic security for Bulgaria" Several German banks apparently also pulled out from financing the project due to unacceptable risks.
Editor's note: In the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear power plant projects were major employers of project managers, and of project management professionals, products, and services. Is this a growing market for PM again, as the cost of energy increases and the world's supplies of petroleum go down? If so, what PM lessons should be applied on those projects today? We should keep in mind that while IT projects seem to be a focus for much of the PM profession today, large engineering and construction projects remain major users of modern PM. Many of those projects have a large impact on local economies and societies. Those projects should also be well planned and managed.
China to Finance & Build Major Rail Project in Nigeria
China is to build a 1,400-km-long railway line between Lagos and Kano, the two main commercial cities in Nigeria. The project will create the first standard railway in Nigeria, a spokesman for the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) announced in Lagos on Monday, 30 October 2006. The construction of the double-track line is expected to involve a total investment of 8.3 billion U.S. dollars.
The contract was signed by the deputy transport minister and the president of the Chinese firm (CCECC). The existing railway along these routes has fallen into disrepair and new tracks are to be built under the deal with China.
China recently granted Nigeria a loan of $2.5bn and much of this is expected to be used in the railway project. This will be the biggest infrastructure project abroad for a Chinese company in recent history. The design, construct and maintain project is expected to employ up to 50,000 Nigerians.
Due for completion in five years, the project will be performed by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and an Italian consultancy firm. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said the project was part of an integrated land, air and sea transportation system for the country. The north-south line will be the first phase in a 20-year modernization programme. The second phase will include a link between the southern oil city of Port Harcourt and the central city of Jos.
African leaders have been attending a summit in China for the last week, at the invitation of the Chinese government, for discussions related to Chinese investment and trade with African nations. In April 2006 the Chinese government announced that China will buy a controlling stake in Nigeria's 110,000 barrel-a-day Kaduna oil refinery; Nigeria announced that it will offer first right of refusal to China National Petroleum for exploration blocks in Nigeria's oil fields, in exchange for which China would invest $4bn (£2.25bn) in oil and infrastructure projects in Nigeria; and the Chinese state oil firm CNOOC announced a £2.3bn deal to buy a stake in a Nigerian oil field.
According to the online Wikipedia, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and the 7th largest in the world, with 171 million residents. It has large reserves of minerals, oil & gas, and a developing economy. Nigeria is a democratic republic modelled after the USA, with a President, Senate and House of Representatives.
The current President of Nigeria is Olusegan Obasanjo who was elected in 1999 following the restoration of democracy after two decades of military dictatorships. Earlier this year Nigeria repaid a multi-billion dollar debt it owed to the Paris Club, becoming the first African nation to settle with its official lenders. Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil exporters. This story was reported by the BBC, China People's Daily, and various other news media around the world on 31 October 2006. China's investment in Nigeria's oil and gas sector, and infrastructure, represents a significant future trend of importance to those interested in projects and project management in Nigeria.
Committee for Data-Gathering Project for National
Economic Development Planning Inaugurated in Abuja, Nigeria
Professor Sylvester Monye, Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Planning Commission (NPC), has inaugurated a steering committee for a project to develop a national database of information on persons and enterprises in Nigeria. The inaugural committee meeting was held in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on 21 November. The new database is to be used for strategic and economic planning as no such repository of authentic information exists in the country. It will be known as the Basic Registry Information System in Nigeria (BRISIN).
The idea originated in Italy, where it is called ANAGRAFE, and has been sold to the Nigerian Federal Government by Dermo Impex of Italy through its Nigerian subsidiary. It has been studied since April 2004 when they made presentations to the government and its various agencies. The study included a trip to Italy by senior Nigerian government officials to observe, at first-hand, its operations.
The justification for the scheme in Nigeria includes the following:
- It is envisaged that when fully operational, BRISIN will become an integrated framework for collection and storage of data and information on each person, each family, public and private enterprises.
- The database will comprise skills of individuals, professions and socio-economic information of citizens and companies within defined geographical entities described as wards.
- The country will be constituted into over 8,000 wards, all linked to a Federal Government central database.
- Data will be collated by the use of ICT including biometric tools. The information so collated and stored will be used for national economic development planning.
In his closing remarks, the professor stated that he could hardly understand how the country could be conducting strategic development plans, since independence in 1960, when it does not have a reliable reference database of information.
Reported by Chima Okereke in Port Harcourt.
Space Shuttle Discovery Launch Set for December 7
The Space Shuttle Discovery is now scheduled to launch on 7 December 2006. Commander Mark Polansky and six crewmates are scheduled to lift off at 9:35 p.m. (14:35 GMT) on the STS-116 mission, one of the most challenging flights to continue building the International Space Station.
During the 12-day mission and three spacewalks, the crew will work closely with flight controllers at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, to install a new segment of the station's girder-like truss and activate the station's permanent, complex power and cooling systems.
The launch date was announced after a traditional meeting, known as the Flight Readiness Review, on 29 November. During the two-day meeting, top NASA managers and engineers assessed the risks associated with the mission and determined whether the shuttle's equipment, support systems and procedures are ready for flight.
"What struck me during this meeting was how complex this mission is and how it fits into the next series of assembly missions," said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier, who chaired the Flight Readiness Review. "We had a very good discussion on a lot of topics and our teams worked hard to make sure we had all the information we need to set our launch date for next Thursday."
Joining Commander Polansky aboard Discovery will be Pilot Bill Oefelein, mission specialists Bob Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham, Nicholas Patrick, European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang and Sunita Williams. Williams will remain aboard the station for six months. ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, who has lived on the station since July, will return to Earth on Discovery.
The space shuttle is one of the most complex machines every built. With its robust capabilities, the space shuttle has allowed humans to construct the International Space Station (the world’s largest orbiting laboratory), paving the way back to the Moon, on to Mars and further into the universe. For more information about STS-116, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle.
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