New Russian contractor to start work on power plant in Iran

Russia has changed the contractor that was supposed to work on the Sirik power plant in southern Hormozagan Province, Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said.

He added that the new contractor is going to start working on the project in the coming weeks.

"[After years of postponing] eventually, the Russian side came to the conclusion that the contractor [for the project] should be replaced. On this basis, a new contractor was selected, which is also approved by our country," IRNA cited  Ardakanian as saying.

Necessary administrative steps related to this replacement are currently underway, the energy minister said.

Ardakanian noted that the credit line for this project is expected to be opened in the coming weeks and the new contractor will hopefully start the project’s executive operations.

Once fully operational, the Sirik project would add some 12 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power to Iran’s current production capacity, Tehran Times reported.

Iran had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Russian Company Technopromexport for implementing the 1,400-megawatt power plant project in August 2016, and the Russian side pledged to invest up to 1.2 billion euro in the project.

The construction of the mentioned thermal power plant started in February 2017, however, it came to a halt due to some administrative and funding problems from the Russian side.