Hopewell Holdings managing director Gordon Wu Ying-sheung used his speech at the official opening of Shajiao C power plant yesterday to try to drum up more business for his already-heavily-burdened group. Speaking as chairman of subsidiary Consolidated Electric Power Asia (Cepa), part of the consortium which constructed Shajiao C, Mr Wu said Cepa was actively pursuing more power generation projects in China. 'We say to the people of Guangdong province, although this power station is finished, in the march forward to economic progress they will need more power stations, and we look forward to working with them,' he said. Many analysts have questioned whether the group already has too much on its plate. Hopewell and Cepa are building power stations, highways and elevated railways in various locations in the region. In order to finance these projects, Hopewell continues to bear a heavy debt burden, prompting the company to enact a number of restructuring plans over the past year. It has also attempted to sell stakes in several of its projects, most notably the Bangkok mass transit system. Hopewell remains entangled with some of those projects it has ostensibly completed, Shajiao C being a prime example. The three consortium members which built the 3x660 MW power plant - Cepa, GEC Alsthom and ABB Combustion Engineering Systems - have yet to come to an arrangement over reduced early-completion bonuses. The power plant should have been commercially operational earlier but technical problems arose in the power-generating units supplied by GEC. First vibration problems in the turbines, then trouble with the rotors, meant that units had to be flown back to Europe for repairs, and that set back the completion of the plant and pared the bonuses. Cepa officials said yesterday that they were 'earnestly' pursuing some form of compensation from GEC for the portion of the bonus forgone by the Hong Kong firm, but they had yet to come to any arrangement. The Shajiao C plant took four years and US$1.87 billion to complete and will supply 10.8 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year to Guangdong.
