Backstage at Medupi, specs dispute drags on

Eskom earlier this month flicked the switch on Medupi's Unit 6, sending the massive power station's first tentative megawatts onto South Africa's gasping grid.

But behind the scenes of this momentous milestone, ill-tempered disputes are still being waged over the quality of the work in the unit's vital boiler and its pipes.

The arguments centre on the pipes inside the boilers made by Mitsubishi-Hitachi, one of the main contractors on Medupi and its sister plant, Kusile. Separately, Paris-based Alstom was contracted by Eskom to produce the turbines for the 12 units in Medupi and Kusile.

The problem is that the quality of the steam being produced in the Hitachi boilers apparently does not meet the standards required to properly spin the turbines built by Alstom.

This seems to be the result of the fact that, in a startlingly uncoordinated display, the specifications signed off by Eskom were different for both companies. Mitsubishi-Hitachi's contract obliged it to guarantee a certain quality of steam (limiting the amount of dirt particles in the steam) - but Alstom's contract required a cleaner grade of steam to best spin the turbines.

David Milner, a spokesman for Mitsubishi-Hitachi, said this week that the company had met its obligations.

"We had a contract, we met those levels. The fact that they aren't the same levels as in someone else's contract - there's nothing we can do about that," he said.

Jerome Boyet, head of Alstom in South Africa, said this was now Eskom's problem: "It's not up to us to decide if Hitachi complied with its contract - it's up to Eskom."

Medupi is one of the most sophisticated power stations in the world, with each of its six units set to produce 800MW of electricity, which will boost the 40000MW national grid by 12%.

But endless delays and monstrous cost overruns have devastated Eskom's bottom line. Medupi is more than two years late and costs have soared R40-billion over budget.

Kinks are still being ironed out, so the full 800MW from Unit 6 will only be available towards the middle of the year.

Last week, Milner told Business Times it had a "difference of opinion" with Eskom on whether Mitsubishi-Hitachi met all of its contractual requirements on high-pressure blow-through tests.

This week, Milner said current complaints about the steam quality were simply nit-picking - including a dispute about the shape of the dirt particles coming out of the pipes.

Nevertheless, he said, the blow-through process was being re-evaluated and "it may be possible to make improvements", which would help to speed up the building of the other units at Medupi and Kusile.

Eskom refused to give details about the final blow test results, saying only that "all that was required to be done was done thoroughly on Medupi's Unit 6".

Hitachi has been mired in controversy since the project began, partly because the ANC's investment front company, Chancellor House, was invested in the company. Last year, Chancellor House had to sell its share in Hitachi when it merged with Mitsubishi.