SK hydropower project begins reservoir filling

Key milestone for CPEC, serves as first step of Belt and Road Initiative

ISLAMABAD:

The reservoir filling of the Suki Kinari Hydropower Project started successfully on Wednesday, marking the completion of another significant milestone and laying a solid foundation for the scheduled power generation target of the project.

According to a press statement issued on Wednesday, the project has mainly been invested by China Gezhouba Group Overseas Investment Company, belonging to China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC). The important moment of reservoir filling was witnessed by owners of SK Project Company, engineers, personnel, and other construction participants.

The dam of the project is an asphalt concrete core-wall rock-fill dam with a crest elevation of 2,239.5 metres, a maximum height of 54.5 metres, a crest width of 10 metres, a length of 258 metres, and a total backfill volume of about 1.9 million cubic metres, the statement added.

During construction, SK Project Company efficiently coordinated all construction participants, optimised the design schemes, accelerated the construction period, and achieved the dam capping target in May 2023 as scheduled.

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After capping, the SK Project Company led the relating parties in the commissioning of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) work, reservoir area slope support and other related work, and finally started the reservoir filling as scheduled with several months’ efforts.

The project is included in the first batch of priority projects list of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which serves as the first step of the “Belt and Road” Initiative. It is currently the largest greenfield hydropower overseas project invested by Chinese enterprises, and has drawn great attention from the Chinese and Pakistan governments and all sectors of society.

So far, the overall construction progress of the project exceeds 98%.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th, 2024.

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