Project Evaluation Of Power Plant Located At North-West Black Sea Coast Of Turkey – OpEd

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We recently evaluated a new investment opportunity in the northwest Black Sea coast of Turkey close to a small touristic fishermen’s village. Below is the expression of a brief “Executive Summary” for an international project financing institution in draft format. An investor received a long-term leasing contract from Turkish Bituminous Coal Enterprise, with a predicted capacity of 780 million tons at 740 meters below sea level in an underground/undersea bed basin off the northwest Black Sea coast, for 49 years.

They predict that they may economically exploit at least 500 million tons to generate the equivalent of an income of 50 billion U.S. dollars. That is approximately 100 U.S. dollars per metric ton of 6000 kcal/kg LHV bituminous coal, which makes approximately over 4.20 U.S. dollars per MMBTU.

We know that the current imported coal spot market figure is floating above 80 U.S. dollars per for similar calorific value, CIF delivery in the Black Sea coast is approximately 3.20 U.S. dollars per MMBTU.

So available local bituminous coal is more expensive than imported coal, also more expensive than local lignite which has over 2 U.S. dollars per MMBTU, hence more and more expensive than local poor quality Elbistan coal which has a plant delivery of price of over 1.10 U.S. dollars per MMBTU.

The investor also advises that they have a 2 billion U.S. dollar budget for a 2000 MWe total output plant with an electricity generating capacity of two plants 2×660 MWe and 1x660MWe respectively.

That reveals that their ballpark budget is 1250 U.S. dollars per installed kw thermal power plant. We know that reputable Western companies are not interested in such low-budget projects for such high-capacity thermal power plants. They are equipped with high-tech ESP and FGDs to avoid any environmental difficulty.

Western companies expect a ballpark project budget of more than 2000 U.S. dollars per kw installed capacity

For such a low budget, you may expect to receive interest from Far East suppliers, with low-budget, short lifespan, low-quality, no or limited spare, limited-redundancy boiler island designs.

The investor recommends employing over 11 thousand employees at the plant. Whereas we presume that one zero is erroneously added, and the figure should be around 1100 for such a size of a new modern thermal power plant.

We are not sure if this project would be feasible, if the project will attract any foreign financing other than the Far East Bank and the low-cost supplier’s country, or if the project will pass the environmental impact assessment procedures in the long term.

I will be too pleased to receive your comments.

Haluk Direskeneli

Haluk Direskeneli, is a graduate of METU Mechanical Engineering department (1973). He worked in public, private enterprises, USA Turkish JV companies (B&W, CSWI, AEP, Entergy), in fabrication, basic and detail design, marketing, sales and project management of thermal power plants. He is currently working as freelance consultant/ energy analyst with thermal power plants basic/ detail design software expertise for private engineering companies, investors, universities and research institutions. He is a member of Chamber of Turkish Mechanical Engineers Energy Working Group.

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