MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Siemens to build two thermoelectric plants in Argentina

Argentina awarded German engineering conglomerate Siemens a contract to build two thermoelectric plants at a cost of about one billion US dollars, said a press officer at the Planning Ministry in Buenos Aires.

The plants should be finished and operating by April 2009 to provide an additional 10% of electricity supply, helping to boost Argentina's tight market. Demand for energy has surged along with swift economic growth, but investment lags due in part to near-frozen tariffs.

The press officer said two other companies bid for the project, France's Alstom and Japan's Mitsubishi. While the Siemens proposal was more costly, the company edged out rival bidders due to its commitment to end works sooner.

The two plants which will each provide an estimated 800 megawatts will be the Timbues plant, in the San Lorenzo district of Santa Fe, and the Manuel Belgrano plant, in the town of Campana, in the Buenos Aires province.

Argentina and Siemens seem to have put differences behind, after the De la Rua government cancelled a huge contract to update IDs that the engineering firm had been awarded in the nineties, amid allegations that Siemens had teamed up with a company owned by controversial business tycoon Alfredo Yabran who was a target of government investigations.