Hydro Project Slated for Turkey

The Shaw Group Inc., announced that its subsidiary, Stone & Webster, Inc., has signed a contract for the engineering and design for the Konaktepe Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant in Turkey.

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana 2002-03-21 [SolarAccess.com] The engineering and design phase of the contract, valued at approximately US$10 million, represents the first of two phases of the project. Upon completion of the first phase, the Stone & Webster led consortium will negotiate the construction phase of the project which is estimated at between US$300 million and US$400 million. Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources awarded this contract under the umbrella of a Turkish-American bilateral agreement signed on February 26, 1998. The Konaktepe project is the second engineering, design, and construction project awarded under the bilateral agreement. The Konaktepe project is located on the Munzur River, a tributary of the Euphrates, near Ovacik in the Tunceli Province, in east central Turkey, and is considered by the Turkish government to be strategically important to the region. The government hopes that the project will promote area development while at the same time providing a more reliable, environmentally friendly source of electricity to the Province and the surrounding region. The Konaktepe facility will generate 180 MW of electricity using a single dam (approximately 100m high), a power tunnel (approximately 15 kilometers long), and a powerhouse with two Francis turbines. Stone & Webster worked on the first hydroelectric power projects in the United States over 100 years ago. Since then, Stone & Webster has engineered and constructed over 70 hydroelectric facilities worldwide. Stone & Webster was involved in more than 30 projects in Turkey over the past 30 years. “Our involvement in the region’s power development started in 1965, with the engineering for a transmission system that included the first transmission line crossing of the Bosphorus Straits,” said J. M. Bernhard Jr., Shaw’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are hopeful that the completion of the Konaktepe project will create an opportunity for social and economic development of Tunceli Province and Stone & Webster will work closely with our consortium members and the ministry to make sure that the maximum benefits are achieved for the people of Turkey.”