CUC to decide on Aggreko extension within month

A decision on whether to extend the $6 million Aggreko contract will come within the next 30 days, Commonwealth Utilities executive director Antonio Muña said yesterday.

The contract for the emergency generators expires in September. By the middle of June CUC must inform Aggreko if it wishes to extend the contract for six months. The utility agency has been renting the generators, which provide an additional 15 megawatts of power to the island, for $504,000 per month.

Within 30 days, Wallon Young, the newly hired deputy director for utilities systems rehabilitation, should be able to assess the current status of the engine rehabilitation and a recommendation will be made, Muña said.

Young, who recently arrived on island, was hired specifically to oversee the rehabilitation process. Yesterday he said it’s not a matter of if the overhaul of the engines will be complete, but when.

“The rehabilitation work will be done. It’s not a matter of will it be done. It just takes time to do it,” he said, adding that it is a very tight timeline.

Young said there would be enough engines repaired by the time the Aggreko contract ends, but it’s important to remember that power stations need adequate reserves if one or two of the major units go down for maintenance.

Young, who worked with CUC in 2007 as part of Quantum Pacific, said all the necessary elements to complete the work are in place this time around.

“There’s quite a difference from now and 2007,” he said. “It’s like a perfect storm of things we have now that we didn’t have in 2007. We have support from DOI [Department of the Interior]; we have funding; we have the support of all of you, especially from the governor. There’s new management in CUC that I did not see in 2007. We have a very good crew to do the work.”

CUC has $5.4 million from the DOI’s Office of Insular Affairs to work on the repairs. Young said the money should be enough to repair three engines at Power Plant 1.

When asked on what the most challenging part of working at CUC is, Young said it’s the procurement process.

“I believe it’s the procurement of parts,” he said. “That’s the biggest challenge. I have mentioned this to the plant already. The procurement of parts seems to be more difficult than overhauling the engines. It’s like pulling teeth.”

Muña agreed that procuring parts in such an extreme situation where every day counts could be difficult.

“Under normal circumstances [the procurement regulations] might be applicable, but this event is extraordinary, and under extraordinary circumstances you need to take proper measures,” Muña said, adding that that is where CUC’s state of emergency comes in. Since August, the utility agency has been under a state of disaster emergency, which, among other things, allows CUC to bypass certain procurement regulations.