July-May: Rs48b spent on Karachi’s nuclear power plants

[niaz]

Niaz bhai

No one can challenge your analysis on energy project. So this post is in no way a challenge to your command on this subject.

I have been a self taught follower of this topic for many years now. So here is a summary (purely from my memory so I may be wrong).

Chinese have bought the blue prints of AP-1000 from Westinghouse. I believe the overall deal was 6 such units with average cost of roughly $2 billion per unit cost. If you do google, Pittsburgh PA newspaper had this news some two years ago.

This deal also allowed Chinese to reproduce and sell the units to third parties (as long they follow established laws dealing with exports of such things).

Us Pakistanis could have made a deal with US on this. Me thinks we didn't want to sign the treaties that US would have us sign.

So we ended up going with Chinese

I am OK upto this point.

And just like you, I am smelling huge markup by Chinese. They are charging us almost 5 billion dollars extra for the two units.

And this is a shame.

This is the price of us not being able to have the ability to buy direct from the source aka Westinghouse. We would have saved those extra $5 billion.

peace


p.s. AP1000 has upper limit on its electricity output a bit more than 1000 MW, and this is why OP gives the total capacity to be 2000+MW instead of just 2000MW.


p.ps.

Perhaps Pakistani gov is padding the price under electric loans and then buying something else from Chinese. Sorry this is just a conspiracy theory of positive kind. I have no direct knowledge. But anything else so far doesn't make sense. Markup of 18 to 20 percent is established. So anything more than this percentage should be meant for something else.

Unless one works for a company which designs power plants such as Westing House, General Electric or South Korean (KEPCO) etc. one would not be privy to the advances in nuclear power technology and like me and everyone else, would depend upon published sources for information.

Additionally, unless it is from a reputable publication such as ’Nature’; one should not accept whatever one reads in the press as ‘truth’ without some independent research. Energy is lubricant of the economic growth and it gives me great pleasure to know that there are other members of the forum such as you who are interested in the Energy field. Please accept my sincere appreciation of your efforts

I recently came across an article on the Chinese Nuclear Power Plants wherein it was mentioned that CAP 1400 design was based on the AP1000 technology. What surprises me is that first AP1000 has gone into operation very recently and Chinese are ready to build similar plants in Pakistan! My compliments to the Chinese ingenuity.

Understand these plants are commercial ventures on which GOP has provided a minimum return guarantee. A 25% mark-up may be okay, but Chinese charging us double! Should this be true, Conspiracy? Hell, No, it is out & out day time robbery. I therefore have serious doubts about the veracity of the cost of plant.