
Local employees at work
Cctv news After six years’ struggle, the construction of Sinclair Hydropower Station in 2016 has entered a fruitful harvest season.
At the celebration ceremony of the first batch of units put into operation, Vice President Grasse of the Ecuadorian government said that the cooperation between the Chinese and Ecuadorian people can achieve great things.
China’s ambassador to Ecuador, Wang Yulin, said that Sinclair Power Station has played an exemplary role and written a new chapter in China-Ecuador cooperation.
Yes, with sincere cooperation between China and Ecuador, the virgin forests that have been sleeping for thousands of years along the Amazon River and the Andes that have been silent for thousands of years have been awakened, and majestic dams, wide factories and towering iron towers stand tall. The singing of hydraulic turbines replaced the noise of the river, and all the silver wires delivered powerful electricity to the Ecuadorian people … …
While benefiting the local people and realizing the dream of one-third of the local population to use electricity, China Power Construction has also built its own dream of "going out" and creating a new pattern of international operation, which has played an exemplary role and written a new chapter in Sino-Ecuadorian cooperation.
A piece of white paper is easy to write.

Master China and Ecuadorian apprentice
On July 28th, 2010, Sinclair Hydropower Station (hereinafter referred to as CCS) started construction. Under the leadership of several project leaders over 35 years old, a group of "dolls" under the age of 27 and 28 started the construction of China’s largest hydropower station overseas at that time and China Power Construction Company’s first project to enter the middle and high-end market in South America. This is a "zero international" experience project execution team without any international construction experience. As the saying goes, "a piece of white paper is easy to write".
Hong Kun, director of CCS project and then secretary of the Party Committee of the 14th Bureau, said: "It was really a mixture of excitement and pressure, excitement and anxiety."
The "first word" written by the young team is a Project Management System Document covering the whole process from design to construction, production to management, front line to logistics, based on a comprehensive investigation and evaluation of local politics, law, taxation, labor, equipment, materials and logistics, so as to strengthen the scientific, systematic and risk controllability of project management and control.
They set up a biweekly "high-level meeting" composed of the Chinese side, the owner and the consultant, which strengthened the consultation and communication ability of the three high-level parties. Although there was a 12-hour meeting, disputes and debates continued, but a consensus was reached and major issues affecting the smooth implementation of the project were solved in time.
They also set up the Joint Dispute Committee (CDB), chaired by Bernan, a famous Spanish lawyer, with Karl, a German engineer, and Albordt, a Colombian engineer as members, as a neutral third party to intervene in the implementation of CCS project, so as to avoid time-consuming and costly international arbitration and litigation, solve disputes fairly and reasonably, and better balance the interests of the parties to the contract. This meeting has been held nine times so far, and 13 disputes have been successfully resolved, with a claim amount of hundreds of millions of dollars and a construction period of 24 days.
The c of EPC general contract refers to the project construction. The main construction of ccs project mainly includes four parts: the first hub, the water conveyance tunnel, the regulating reservoir and the underground powerhouse. The implementation period is long, the span is large, and there are many difficulties. "Cost control is particularly important." Zhang Degao, the chief economist of the project, said: "We systematically analyze and calculate the total cost of the project once a year, and six versions have been formed so far."
Analyze and calculate the total cost of the project on a regular rolling basis, deeply analyze the composition and changes of various expenses, and find out the changes and causes of the expected profits, so as to study and formulate targeted control measures, which can control the project cost as a whole, reduce contract risks, continuously improve the management level of overseas projects and ensure the overall operating results of the project.
In their view, "progress is the biggest cost". Wang Fengjun, the business assistant, said: "We often go deep into four construction departments, and work with the construction manager to carefully analyze the cost input of people, materials and machines, determine the key links and key processes that affect the cost, rectify the deviation in time, and check on a monthly basis to ensure the smooth completion of major node goals."
During the difficult excavation of a water conveyance tunnel with a total length of 24.8 kilometers and a maximum excavation diameter of 9.15 meters, they conducted 11-stage tool consumption and 14-stage over-footage assessment on the construction of TBM1, which effectively promoted the TBM1 to achieve a good result of an average monthly footage of 663 meters and a maximum monthly footage of 1,059 meters. The incentive assessment of TBM1 segment production was quantified to each segment and each ring, which also achieved good results. The production task of TBM1 segment was successfully completed ahead of schedule on February 22, 2014.
In the ccs project department, there is a story that a management department directly organizes and directs the construction. In February 2012, the power station construction was in full swing, and a large number of construction and management personnel entered the site. However, the construction of the living camp was seriously delayed due to the slow construction of local subcontractors, especially the No.2 main site as the project office and production command center. As a result, the owner has serious doubts about the construction management ability of the project department.
In order to reverse the passive situation, the project was always ordered by Zhang Degao to be the production commander of the construction of Camp No.2 during the day and handle the complicated affairs of contract business at night. To build a good camp according to the high standards of first-class large multinational companies, the time was tight and the task was heavy. He led a deputy director of the business department to decompose and refine the construction schedule of the camp, and reversed the construction period, so that the construction task of Camp 2 was completed on schedule in a swamp. Although Zhang Degao’s face has become a "belt face" — — When the safety helmet is taken off, a circle of white hat belt marks are conspicuously left on the tanned face, but the good construction organization and management ability have completely changed the previous bad impression of the owner.
Facing the uniform, beautiful environment and supporting facilities of Camp 2, the owner’s general manager praised: "I like every grass and tree in the camp".
You shouldn’t be a sinner if you are bitter and tired

Zhou Xiancai and his fiancee Lorena
In the interview with ccs project department, I also heard a new thing. The project department set up a design and research institute. Including more than 20 external local engineers, the number of design and research institutes reached more than 100 at the peak, and the current director is He Guoxiong, 28.
The e of EPC general contracting refers to engineering design. The design of CCS project is mainly divided into conceptual design, basic design and detailed design, and the design documents of each stage need to be strictly approved by the owner. The design scope includes the main works such as the head hub, water conveyance tunnel, water storage reservoir, water diversion and power generation system, and ancillary works such as permanent operation village, power transmission and transformation lines and aerial ropeway. If the main workload is calculated by the number of drawings, calculations and reports in the detailed design stage, the total amount is about 9000.
Design work is the leader of the whole project construction, which plays a vital leading role in the progress, quality and success of the project construction. The design management burden of coordinating all parties involved in the design of CCS power station, introducing and controlling well-known design and consulting institutions at home and abroad is on the shoulders of young He Guoxiong.
"Language barrier is the biggest difficulty," He Guoxiong said. "The contract language is Spanish, and we are very short of Spanish translation familiar with hydropower projects, which makes it a great challenge to prepare western design documents. Every time we complete a document, we have to go through Chinese — — English — — In the conversion process of western languages, the owner’s letters have to go through the same conversion. "
Faced with language difficulties, standardization difficulties and conceptual differences, the design institute adopted a new design management model, introduced "outside brain" and local engineers to promote "design after design", and completed the review and approval of the project conceptual design in only one year; It took 13 months to complete 12 volumes of basic design reports, and completed about 12,080 design criteria, calculations, reports and drawings in the detailed design stage, with the highest monthly completion rate of 500 and the highest monthly approval rate of 400. By the end of 2015, all the designs of the main project have been completed.
P of EPC general contracting refers to the procurement of engineering equipment. The procurement chain of permanent mechanical and electrical equipment for CCS project is long, from mechanical and electrical conceptual design, procurement bidding, factory supervision and factory acceptance, to land and sea transportation, on-site acceptance, installation inspection, commissioning and operation, and so on. Many equipment and materials are gathered in the construction site from famous manufacturers in China and the world, and they have to go through 11 major procurement processes and 6 major installation processes, and there are countless small round-trip processes.
On April 11th, 2013, Feng Yanguo, the representative of China Power Construction International Company and the electromechanical manager of the project department, came to Paris to accept the 500 kV high-voltage cable. Hardly had he got off the plane when he received the news of his mother’s death. After a week of acceptance with tears in his eyes, he came home, holding his mother’s urn, unable to cry … …
When transporting an auxiliary transformer with a length of 4.1 meters, a width of 3.2 meters and a height of 5.6 meters, I met a bridge opening with a height of less than 5 meters on the way, and the equipment could not pass. Liu Helin, an electromechanical assistant, and Zhao Lei, a young man who just left the school in 2011, ran before and after a while in a rainstorm and a while in the sun, but they just came up with a strange trick of "changing big tires for small tires", which reduced the height of the truck and successfully passed through bridge opening. Every day, I start at six o’clock in the morning and stop at five o’clock in the afternoon. Sometimes I drive only 30 kilometers in one day. From the port city of Guayaquil to the construction site, they ate and lived with local drivers and followed the car for eleven days, with a journey of 710 kilometers.
According to statistics, there are 188 procurement contracts for permanent mechanical and electrical equipment and materials of CCS project, including 54 main contracts, 96 supplementary contracts and 23 contracts in the form of construction materials. The main signatories are 33 Chinese-funded enterprises, 5 Sino-foreign joint ventures and 3 foreign-funded enterprises in Japan, France and Norway, with a purchase contract value of more than 540 million US dollars.
"If there is a problem with the permanent mechanical and electrical equipment and it can’t send electricity, then all the efforts made by thousands of people for the construction of power stations will be wasted. We would rather be bitter and tired than be sinners, "Liu Helin said.
Thanks to China Hydropower.

Bibiana and Dr. China who rescued her
Bibiana, 25, was a waitress in a small restaurant in St. Louis village near Camp 2 of CCS Power Station. On the evening of May 29th, 2012, she suddenly had a stomachache and wanted to have a baby. After receiving the news of asking for help, CCS Project Department immediately dispatched a doctor, nurse and an ambulance from Camp 2, and sent her to Chaco City Hospital more than 30 kilometers away in time to ensure the safety of mother and child. When mentioning this matter, Bibiana always said excitedly: "Thanks to the selfless help of China Hydropower!" Today, she and her sister are both secretaries in the project administration department, and her brother-in-law is a driver.
There are many bends and steep slopes along the CCS site, where there is no rain every day, frequent landslides and rollover accidents. One day at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, Ma Guihong, manager of the plant construction department, received a phone call from Wang Jinlong, a safety assistant: "A local bus from Lago to Quito had a rollover accident near the volcanic town, and two passengers were still under it. Please send a 16-ton crane to participate in the rescue immediately! "
The accident site is 33 kilometers away from the construction department of the factory building. The highway grade is low, the dark road is narrow and curved, the crane tonnage is heavy and the body is long, but time is life. The construction department can’t take care of these things, so it immediately sends a crane, a pickup truck and six employees to the scene … … When the rescuers sent the wounded to the ambulance and returned to the station, it was already more than 12 o’clock in the middle of the night.
According to the data, in 2015 alone, the hospital of CCS Project Department provided 33,867 person-times of diagnosis and treatment services for local people, carried out 12 social emergency medical rescues, and treated and referred 39 injured people.
Give a rose, but leave a fragrance in your hand. In recent years, CCS Project Department has invested more than 500,000 US dollars to help local people and give back to local society. They actively improved roads, repaired gardens, installed drinking water pipes, built school guardrails and presented school supplies for Chaco City, where the project is located, and established the hydropower image of China with a good reputation. The project general manager Zi Jiquan won the title of "Honorary Citizen of Chaco City" for many times.
At the construction site, we also interviewed Zhou Xiancai, an interpreter from the construction department of Shangpingdong. Xiao Zhou, a 28-year-old graduate of Xi ‘an International Studies University, has been in constant contact with the local secretary Lorena employed by the office for more than three years, and has developed a feeling of admiration. Lorena said in blunt Chinese: "China young man, hard-working, handsome!" Earlier this year, Lorena followed Xiao Zhou back to her hometown in Ankang, Shaanxi Province for the Spring Festival, and visited Xi ‘an and Chengdu. She is very appreciative of the sense of responsibility of China’s young man and the family’s reunion, and she is very interested in China’s bell tower, Wild Goose Pagoda, Wu Hou Bar and other ancient buildings. She said: "In the future, I will follow wherever I am thoughtful."
China element and China hydropower have changed the local social outlook and people’s life, and had a great impact on the development of Ecuador.
The investment in CCS project is huge, which has brought more than 7,000 direct jobs and 15,000 indirect jobs to the local area. 80% of the employees in the project department are local laborers, including senior managers such as deputy director of technology and manager of human resources department. There are only 10 Chinese employees in the SHSA (Safety, Health, Hygiene and Environment) Management Department, but there are more than 100 local employees.
While creating many employment opportunities, the project department has sent high-level skilled technicians to strengthen the training of local employees, and even simple tasks such as binding steel bars are "hands-on". Over the past few years, the project department has held more than 600 multi-level trainings on construction operation, quality and safety and labor management for local employees, with the number of trainees reaching 13,000, and trained more than 1,000 construction team leaders and more than 400 construction technical talents and management talents at all levels, which won high recognition from the local government and people and effectively ensured the smooth progress of the project construction.
Embracing the local society with open arms and actively promoting the "localization" of project implementation have become the new normal for China Power Construction to develop overseas business. (Ran Luchao Yu Yong)