Mr. Jaime Aristy Escuder prepared and broadcast a simple, easy, but false story about what happened – and is happening now – at the Punta Catalina thermal power plant. But he failed to explain certain scandalous events, unknown to the general public, committed during his tenure to the detriment of the country and in favor of Odebrecht. See:
1. According to Mr. Aristy Escuder, the strategic goal of “Mr. Almonte is to discredit” the Punta Catalina factory and then sell it at the price of a dead cow. You have to be alive to see and hear things!
One of the first public spokesmen to confront the government of Danilo Medina in 2019 to sell Punta Catalina was the one who signed. This sale was promoted, among others, by Jaime Aristy himself and included the transfer of half of the factory for only $ 308.5 million to a private company, so that, with the guarantee of the plant itself, the private entity could manage a loan. in the international banking sector for $ 1,750 million and then signed a 30-year contract for the sale of energy with a guarantee from the Dominican state, through distribution companies. The sale was worse than the sale of a dead cow.
2. On the other hand, according to Mr Aristy, “the dismissal of the Superintendent of Operations, the Superintendent of Maintenance and the Head of the Air Quality Control System (AQCS) (…) has weakened the ability to make timely decisions to ensure proper functioning and maintenance of these units ”.
The truth is that when we came to government, about 60 engineers were working in Punta Catalina, of which only three were excluded and were replaced by other experienced engineers.
The operations inspector was replaced by the second-in-command.
The maintenance superintendent was replaced by engineer Lorenzo Familia, who worked on the Punta Catalina project from 2013 to 2020 as responsible for the installation and monitoring of turbo-generators and ancillary equipment until its commercial start.
The rest, 57 engineers trained for Punta Catalina, continue in the same place where the current administrator of the plant, the engineer Serafín Canario, found them.
When the plant was operated by the consortium in coordination with CDEEE, Unit 1 encountered serious failures in the boiler and also in the AQCS system. Moreover, in March 2020 – and also in April of the same year – the boiler of Unit 2 suffered a major failure that forced the plant to be decommissioned for more than a month.
These facts indicate that it is simplistic to blame the current officials at Punta Catalina for the disastrous performance of the factory.
What can be criticized is that, during the administration of Jaime Aristy, the letter of provisional acceptance was delivered to each factory, declaring it good and valid, despite the fact that they revealed notable structural defects. The provisional acceptances have put CDEEE on the wall and have almost no right to any large-scale claims.
Another error by Mr Aristy Escuder is that “(…) CDEEE has taken unsuccessful steps to eliminate the presence of sodium chloride in the boiler of Unit 2”. Nothing is more false. As of January 3, 2021, the Odebrecht consortium is in charge of repairing boiler 2, not CDEEE. Unit 2 is still under warranty at least until April 24, 2021.
Boiler capacity
For a long time, together with the canary engineer, we doubted that the real capacity of the boilers is 376 MW gross, as stated and repeated by Jaime Aristy. There are basically two reasons for our concern:
First of all, because the maximum capacity of the boiler determines the thermal working regime to which it will be subjected in normal operation. This means that if the wrong regime of steam flow, pressure (etc.) is used, the boiler could suffer catastrophic damage. Which means it is necessary to specify the actual capacity.
In the case of Punta Catalina, the contract was signed for a maximum capacity of 360 MW gross and 337.7 MW net. This capability was later ratified by manufacturer Babcock and Wilcox in a letter dated January 27, although surprisingly, the same company, in another letter of February 12, tried to deny it based on data from McHale Associates, which is not a boiler manufacturer. .
The difference is that all tests and documents indicate that the only way to bring these plants to 376 MW and maintain them continuously is with a much higher superheated steam flow in the boiler than specified by the manufacturer and with a power factor in electric generator equal to 1 and not 0.85, as required. Under these conditions, in order to maintain 376 MW, the boilers would operate forcibly and suffer structural damage.
The second reason, or rather the real reason, is Annex T to the EPC contract signed between CDEEE and Odebrecht.
This annex states that for each megawatt greater than the net value guaranteed in the contract, CDEEE must pay an additional $ 1 million in compensation to Odebrecht. In other words, if, as Jaime claims, the boiler has 376 MW gross and 347 MW net, then CDEEE had to pay Odebrecht more than ten million dollars more.
Unfortunately, for CDEEE, on January 10, 2020, as stipulated in an anthological agreement, Jaime Aristy and Rubén Bichara agreed to pay Odebrecht another $ 11 million, based on Annex T.
What was said in that Minute of the Agreement is summarized in the following paragraph:
“The corporation acknowledges that on January 10, 2020, the fourth additional litigation event took place, to the satisfaction of the corporation, ie unit 2 successfully reached a load equal to or greater than 376 MW (maximum rated load) of generation for 2 continuous / uninterrupted hours, operating with three coal factories and diesel burners. Mentioned activation amount Additional amount Existing disputes will be invoiced for the amount of 11,000,000.00 USD, through an invoice that will be issued on January 25, 2020 and whose payment will be within 30 days from the presentation of the corresponding invoice “.
After reading this paragraph, I don’t think it is necessary to say more …