The site of the Bakun Dam, the second tallest of its kind in the world when completed, is humming with activity as its joint venture partners get cracking to complete it by September 2007, writes ANTHONY RAJ. IT is designed to last over 100 years and is being built using Malaysian, Chinese and Canadian engineering expertise. To be completed at a far lower cost than when it was first tendered for, the Bakun Hydro-electric Dam Project in Sarawak, by any measure, is still a massive project in terms of size and what is expected of it.

Commonly called the Bakun Dam, the project was clouded by ecological and sociological concerns when it was first considered in the 1970s, and was immersed in financial controversy after the economic meltdown of the late 90s when construction, undertaken by Ekran Berhad, was halted.

The effects of the currency crisis took its toll on Ekran when it and its main contractor, the Swede-Swiss giant ABB, could not agree on cost overruns or who was to bear it and, depending on who tells the story, was asked to leave or decided to pull out of the project.

The Government has since spent some RM1.3 billion to rescue Ekran, which had done the preparatory work and, using Korean construction company Dong Ah, constructed the diversion tunnel.

Bakun Dam was originally estimated to cost RM19.8 billion (US$5.2 billion), which included some 650km of submarine power transmission cables to Pensinsular Malaysia. The submarine cable plan was then dropped and the cost revised to RM9 billion by Ekran.

When Sarawak Hidro, the Ministry of Finance company undertaking the project, called again for an international tender, there were five bidders.

Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby, which started out as an English plantation house during the colonial days and has since diversified into construction, engineering and manufacturing, quoted a confident figure of RM1.78 billion.

"We won the international tender, our bid was the lowest," says Jafar Carrim, managing director of Sime Darby's Engineering Services Berhad. "We will deliver on time to the specifications required." Sime's partner in the project is China Hydro under a company called MalaysiaChina Hydro Joint Venture (MCHJV).

The project is scheduled for completion by September 2007.

The MCHJV package also calls for the construction of eight power tunnels, one power intake tunnel, one powerhouse and one spillway (see story on F2).

The Civil Works 1 (CW1) package, which calls for the construction of an upstream coffer dam, was undertaken by Ekran and it was paid RM70 million.

MCHJV will also oversee the installation of eight turbines, each with an output of 300MW. The turbines will be installed under the packages called Electrical-Mechanical Works 1 and 2 (EM1, EM2).

The first EM package, worth RM500 million, has been awarded to French engineering giant Alstom, which will install four turbines. The second EM package, for the installation of another four turbines, is also worth RM500 million and will be done by an Argentine company.

For a total cost of RM2.85 billion (RM50 million for CW1; RM1.78 billion for CW2; RM500 million for EM1; and RM500 million for EM2), Bakun Dam will produce a maximum 2,400mhz for 100 years at least.

The Sime group, which posted a profit of about RM500 million for 2002, is among the oldest and most credible Malaysian international company.

With a reputation to live up to at home and abroad, Sime sought out China Hydro, the people who know the dam business, when it tendered for the project. China Hydro has a formidable reputation, as it is involved in the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. It is now helping to build the 225m Shibuiya Dam, which will be the tallest concrete-face rockfill dam in the world.

The Malaysian-Chinese joint venture started work on the dam in September 2002 and when completed in 2007, it will stand at 205m — the second tallest concrete-face rockfill dam.

Bakun Dam when commissioned will add its 2,400MW to the current national total of 27,000MW, which includes power production from Tenaga Nasional and IPPs (independent power producers) like the coal-fired Manjung plant and the gas-fired YTL plant (1,000MW).

The initial cost of building a hydro-electric power plant may be high and the effects on the people and environment incalculable, but the benefits in the long run are when the nonpolluting and low-operating cost factors come into play.

"Our requirements are to design it to last for at least 100 years," says Jafar, who is also the project director of the MCHJV.

In most hydro-electric projects, although they are designed to produce, say, 1,000MW, they can produce this maximum power only for a short period because the water capacity will not always be sufficient to turn the turbines for maximum power output over a long period.

In the case of Bakun, the large catchment area and the rainfall will keep it at optimum level (or base load), allowing enough water to turn the turbines to operate at maximum capacity.

"Hydro-electric power usually peaks and falls, but Bakun, because of its vast catchment area, will have a special ‘base load platform' transmission which ensures continuing hydro-electric generation," says Jafar.

This is good news on the power front for, with fossil fuel in Malaysia expected to be exhausted within 20 years, oil- and gaspowered power plants will be costly affairs.

Nuclear power, especially after the Chernobyl disaster, is bad news but it could be a way of life in the West when the oil wells dry up. Coal could be fashionable again while wind and solar power are options that have yet to be fully developed.

Power is the engine of development and developed countries, which have chopped down their forests, built their share of hydro-electric dams and have access to oil, know this only too well.

"The power produced by the Bakun Dam will have a significant impetus for the economic development of Sarawak and Sabah," says Jafar.

If power is good news, the worst, so to speak, is the felling of all those trees in the dam catchment area and the biodiversity that has been or will be lost.

The damage has been done, but could it have been prevented or minimised? What is important now, however, is that the lessons of Bakun must not be lost on other development projects.

The sociological impact is the resettlement of close to 10,000 people, mainly Kayan and Kenyah, and also Penan and Ukit (see story in Focus 3) whose traditional homes will now be submerged.

How well these people are brought into the mainstream of Malaysian life and how well and whose responsibility is it to see that the sons and daughters of Bakun enjoy the fruits of Malaysian development will be under the microscope.

Here is where well-meaning nongovernmental organisations have a role to play in advising or alerting the Government to any shortcomings.

While the thorny issues of sociological and ecological damage are being assessed, the issue of the dam not being completed on time has been raised on a number of occasions of late.

Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary who, through his investment group GIIG Capital, has made an initial payment of one per cent of the purchase price of RM945 million of Sarawak Hidro for which he will have 60 per cent of the company, is said to have raised concerns over whether the dam will be built on time.

For this initial payment, Syed Mokhtar has three men sitting on the five-man management committee of Sarawak Hidro.

Syed Mokhtar, with Dubai interests, is reported to have plans to build an aluminum smelting plant to take advantage of the power that Bakun Dam will be producing. The smelter is planned to be operating come August 2007.

For a project of this magnitude (Bakun Dam) and for the time that it would take to build it, says Jafar, the projected work schedule is bound to experience delays at some point, especially in the initial stages.

"After all, it was we who set our deadlines for our work schedule and we will deliver (complete the dam) on time (September 2007)," says Jafar.

In any civil engineering work, the important aspect is the design and Sime engineers, with the national agenda in mind, had understandably spent quite some time on it and put a lot of effort into it.

The design has been submitted to Sarawak Hidro and work on whatever portion that has been approved has commenced and is on schedule, give or take a month or two.

The "site is rather steep" and "conditions are severe" but MalaysiaChina Hydro is coping.

Taking into consideration the change to certain aspects of the design by the project principals, the vagaries of the weather and other factors, there will be "obviously be a lag time", says Jafar.

If they have lost a few months in the initial stages, Malaysia-China Hydro will make for it when construction is in full swing.

And Bakun is already humming.

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Focus: Resigned to new lifestyle

Some 10,000 people who have been uprooted by the Bakun Dam project have been resettled. They tell IDROS ISMAIL how they are coping with life in a new environment. THE village of Sungai Asap is now home to about 10,000 people of the mainly Kayan, Kenyah and Penan tribes. It lies about an hour's drive from their ancestral land — the Bakun Dam site. It takes another good three hours to the nearest urban centre of Bintulu.

The populace of 1,636 families is now spread over in a conurbation of 15 longhouses in Sungai Asap.

Each family unit has been given 1.2 hectares for its till. There is a school, a dispensary and a police base within easy reach of the longhouses.

In the four or five years since the big move, some have adapted to their new environment and lifestyle better than others.

Many accept that there is no point in harping on "the old ways, the old homes". They are resigned and stoic to their new circumstances — something that was imposed upon them out of "national development interests".

Like Duren Lihan, 43, a Kayan and muren (headman) of the Uma Bawang longhouse to over 600 of his fellow Kayans in Sungai Asap since 1990.

"I'm overwhelmed by melancholy whenever I think about my old place. I was born there — tempat tumpah darah saya. I stayed there for 40 years.

"Sure, I miss it, but what to do? We have to abide by the Government's orders. But if I had a choice, I wouldn't have moved," says Duren resignedly.

It's been four years since he was displaced. He effuses nostalgia as he recalls how life was easier back then.

"Everything was free; we fished, hunted wildlife and plucked vegetables. Now we have to buy food. We have to pay for water and electricity. No payment and the utilities are disconnected," laments Duren, as he echoes many of his kinsfolk's concerns in trying to exist in an unfamiliar cash economy.

"There are few work opportunities here. We have yet to see the opening of land for oil palm cultivation, which could provide jobs for us.

"I wish the authorities could assist us, especially in agriculture. In the four years here, we have had to start farming the given plots at our own cost.

"It would help to ease our burden if subsidies could be extended, especially in this early stage of adaptation." But surely the compensation received from the Government has helped them? "It has, but has since dwindled. Compensation of between RM20,000 and RM30,000 was given to many residents.

"But after deductions, they received only about RM10,000. The authorities say the deduction was because the acquired land was infertile, full of weeds and unkempt. I don't know." Do his people harbour any lingering resentment towards the Bakun Dam project that has displaced his kinsmen? "Most accept the project, but the older ones are against it. The young are enthusiastic about the expectations of progress," says Duren.

The viewpoint from Saging Bit, 42, a muren from the Uma Belor longhouse is different. He has grasped the opportunities provided by easier and faster access to markets. He feels he has thrived in the new location.

"At the old place in Ulu Bakun, our farms were in the jungle. We had to trudge along to bring our farm produce to the riverbank, and unload into the perahu before we could take it home.

"Now it's easier. The roads are good. The lorries can come right up to our farms," says a cheerful Saging.

"We've been here only about five years. In time to come, we hope to steadily increase our income." His only grouse is the inconvenience when the piped water supply is interrupted. Then again there's the sad episode of another muren who got cheated out of his RM62,000 compensation money by unscrupulous outsiders. He declines to disclose the details, only saying that he didn't get a single sen, stoically accepting that it was just his "bad luck".

No wonder he resents being in Sungai Asap.

"I prefer my old longhouse. The soil was fertile and the food was aplenty. We grew padi, pepper, cocoa, and had more than enough for our consumption," says Gun Nimang, 61.

"There was little need for cash then. But now, some of my residents are dependent on RM100 welfare aid a month." Gun adds that although access to market is easier now, the concentration of longhouses in Sungai Asap has resulted in an over-production of some farm produce. Hence there were few buyers, leading to waste of the produce.

"The good thing now is that the school and dispensary are nearer. The market is also near. But now we need cash," he says. Unlike Saging, Gun has not prospered as much in Sungai Asap. In fact, he says that he now earns only about one tenth of his regular monthly income of RM3,000 he used to earn in Ulu Bakun. It's just enough to pay for his utility bills.

He has learnt to accept the situation he is in now. He even tells his children to look ahead.

"No, I'm not angry at the Bakun project now. I hope Sarawak can progress further with the project."

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Focus: It's a tall order indeed by any dam standards

Idros Ismail

Slowly but surely the Bakun Dam is taking shape after experiencing some hiccups in the early years, writes IDROS ISMAIL. STANDING atop a vista point, one is overwhelmed by the rugged beauty of the lush Bakun rainforest as one scans the horizon.

The forest canopy seems to stretch seamlessly into the distance, seemingly as virginal as an untouched maiden.

But there is a scar. The Bakun valley is slowly but surely being carved out, exposing the earth in all its raw nakedness.

The sounds of heavy machinery permeate the air as giant dump trucks meander through a network of haul tracks, disposing cut earth to a disposal area within the construction site.

Rocks are being drilled and blasted out of the rock borrow pit. They will be crushed to designed sizes for concrete aggregates and rockfill.

The scarred patch is a necessary but temporary blot on the Bakun landscape. For here, 37 kilometres upstream of Belaga town, the world's second highest concrete-faced rockfill dam will straddle the Balui River at a height of 205 metres and a crest length of about 740m. When completed in September 2007, the Bakun Dam will inundate 69,640 hectares (larger than Singapore, with room to spare) of land in a water catchment area of 14,750 square kilometres.

It will impound 15.4 million cubic metres of water that will power the giant turbines to generate a total of 2,400 mega watts of electricity.

The on-off project is on again. It has survived the hiccups of the 1990s. In the words of the main man on site, Canadian Gilles Porlier, the project is "definitively under way".

Porlier is the project manager. He heads a team of Canadian, Chinese and Malaysian engineers and workers that is expected to number over 3,000 when work peaks in 2004.

For him, the project is well past the "ifs and buts, when and how" stage. There's no looking back now.

The RM1.78 billion main civil works is gathering steam on site. The workers are streaming in, the heavy machineries are being mobilised, and concrete batching and rock crushing plants are up and running.

The gargantuan and complex task ahead includes the construction of the main dam, spillway, intake, penstocks, water release outlet, powerhouse, hydraulic gates and building services for the mechanical and electrical works.

But for now, nearly 14 months into the contract, excavation works are proceeding until the actual construction levels are reached.

Nearly 900,000 cubic metres of earth have been excavated from the left and right banks, with a total of 840,000 cubic metres dug from the spillway and powerhouse sites.

(The recent Bukit Lanjan rockfall quantity at the New Klang Valley Expressway was estimated at 20,000 cubic metres.) "We've excavated close to three million cubic metres of earth and rocks now. We've built access and haul roads, downstream coffer dam and we've developed the rock borrow pit area from which the dam rockfill will be obtained," says Porlier.

"It is extremely crucial to build a carefully-planned network of roads, taking into consideration the anticipated heavy on-site traffic movement and the constricted site.

"At any one time there could be traffic from six locations to provide the dam fill. Materials will have to be transported within and outside the dam footprint.

"We have defined areas within the dam site for disposal of surplus materials. Priorities, dates, equipment and plant movement, earth volumes, road gradients and lengths — all these are planned." When the dam is completed, it will have used over 16 million cubic metres of crushed, selected rocks that will form the body of the dam structure. Most of the preparatory works have been completed since the contract award on Oct 8 last year. Additional soil investigations and survey were done to facilitate the conceptual and subsequent detailed design. Excavation drawings for all structures are ready; hence the frenetic excavation on site.

In addition, various studies have been completed — seismic, hydrological and geological — as required under the engineering component of the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract.

If the dam size is not any indication, one has to observe the fleet of vehicles and construction plants already on site to appreciate the magnitude of the project.

Numbering 317 and valued in the tens of million ringgit, giant dump trucks, loaders, excavators, bulldozers, compactors and graders have been procured.

More are coming through Bintulu port — from Japan, Sweden and the United States, among others.

A crushing plant rated at 220 ton per hour is in operation at the rockborrow pit. A 500-ton plant will be installed next to the concrete batching plant at the upstream face of the dam.

All the hardware has to be optimally used in accordance with the project schedule. According to Porlier, the project baseline work programme and overall work method statement have been approved by the employer.

When the project team took possession of the site, the upstream coffer dam and the water diversion tunnel had already been completed by other contractors from the previous civil works contract.

Under the contract, another coffer dam downstream of the dam location has to be constructed.

As Porlier explains, the diversion tunnel and the upstream and downstream coffer dams are necessary to ensure a water-free and safe work area.

"We need to ‘de-water' the work area between the upstream and downstream coffer dams and protect the work area, ensuring that the dam construction work is carried out in the dry." As the hands-on man-in-charge on site, Porlier has job of ensuring that the project keeps to the critical timelines in the overall work programme.

Failure would mean delays that could result in the imposition of fines by the employer of up to RM1.3 million per day.

There are contract interfaces between two contractors in the project. The fines are to cover against any delays arising out of untimely interfaces.

"We have one contract ending an activity and another starting. If the second contractor cannot start on time, he will claim against the employer. Of course, if the fault lies with the first contractor, he will have to pay," explains Porlier.

Some key dates are for the design interface. He provides an example where the civil contractor has to design the powerhouse to suit the design requirements of the electrical equipment of the electrical contractor.

Any delays arising out of incompatibility of designs between the two can affect overall project completion, hence the need for close liaison and co-ordination between the parties concerned.

As Porlier says: "At the end of the day, the project owner has to fulfil his commitment to deliver electricity." He is piqued at speculations in the media that the project would be delayed by a year because of the late completion of the downstream coffer dam. He acknowledges there was indeed a delay in the completion of the coffer dam, but "it was not a key date in the overall schedule".

As he explains: "In any project planning, there is a critical path in work programmes. Work activities that fail to meet any set date on the path could result in delays in project completion.

"The coffer dam was not in the critical path. So we're still within the overall completion period.

"The baseline work programme has been amended, but key dates are unchanged, including the project completion date.

"That contractual date is not really an issue; it's essentially to allow us to ‘plan the work, and work the plan'. That's all there is to it.

"We also have a six-month ‘recovery plan' that is practically a work plan to recover any delays." Porlier assures that so far all key dates have been met. "Those we were to have met, we have met; those that we have to meet, we will meet!" On how he will manage any other possible delays, Porlier says that it will be overcome through a change in the work methods.

"If we adjust the construction method, we may and we will gain time." "We're not particularly surprised nor worried about the delay. We are handling this as a normal construction problem that is often encountered at the beginning of a project." "Of course, if you have a delay in the critical path and proceed with the same method, you will necessarily be delayed at the end. But if you change your method, it can be overcome." He adds: "Here in Bakun, the most critical activity is to rockfill the dam within the allocated time. It's a big challenge presented by the required high rate of excavation and fill. But we are organised to do it." Porlier has to also to contend with some other non-construction problems. For one, as in other economic sectors, the construction industry suffers from a shortage of labour. The current total workforce on-site numbers 960, of which 613 are from Sarawak, 160 from Peninsular Malaysia, 164 from China and seven from Canada.

"We're trying very hard to use local labour, but there are not enough qualified or skilled. We may have to go abroad to recruit. But it's not something we cannot overcome." A full-fledged training programme has been set up with the Construction Industry Development Board in Kuching to teach and equip local workers with the necessary skills for work in Bakun.

In addition, it has been proposed to the project owners, Sarawak Hidro, to involve lecturers and students of local universities in certain aspects of the project.

Porlier also faces the vagaries of the tropical weather. As he puts it: "The rain is another tough customer. We just have to make special provisions for it. We have to provide adequate drainage, proper roads and slope protection, and plan for less productivity in the monsoon season." Porlier says that a reason for the initial project delay was the longer time needed to import plants and equipment.

"This is something that cannot be avoided. It's not like in the US or Canada where there may be a few hydropower projects taking shape at the same time.

"There, you can deploy and re-deploy the same equipment. But here, importation of equipment takes time. We just have to plan ahead to take into account this lag time." But all these problems seem minor in relation to the actual task faced by Porlier to construct the massive 205m high Bakun Dam — a tall order by any dam standards.