China Three Gorges Corp. and Activadades de Construccion y Servicios have been asked to team up by the government of the DRC and submit a single bid for the development of a hydropower project in the country.
A brief statement from the presidency gave no reason for the latest decision, which affects both the Chinese and the Spanish firm. “The two consortiums have been invited … to do everything possible to form a single group before submitting an optimized bid,” said a statement from the presidency.
The Inga 3, a $14-billion hydroelectric project, has seen a host of delays due to lack of funding. The World Bank was funding a portion of the project but pulled funding after the office of the president appropriated the project away from the control of the prime minister’s office.
The project was originally supposed to have a developer by October of last year and construction was scheduled to launch this month.
The project, if/when it comes to fruition will expand on two existing Inga hydroelectric dams and is part of an eight-stage Grand Inga project that would produce a record 44,000 MW at an estimated cost of $50 to $80 billion.