Power Lines Will Go Underground

At a cost of $23 million Dollars, Union Fenosa will replace power lines with underground cables in Panama City, Santiago and David in a four-year period starting in March 2011 and ending in July 2014, reported Sebastian Perez , the Director of Distribution for the electrical company. The bid for companies to perform the work will be held in November 2010. This project will increase the cost to consumers at a rate of 0.001 cents per kilowatt of electricity used by residential customers, or $1.00 for 1,000 kilowatts, explained Perez.
During the installation of the new cables and the replacement of the existing power cables on poles for underground cables, power will be interrupted by sectors for no more than four hours at a time, not days, said the representative of Union Fenosa. In Panama City the cables will be changed along vía Brasil, vía España, Avenida Federico Boyd and Calle 50, at a cost of more than $18 million dollars. In Santiago the work will be from Central Avenue to the Inter American Highway, covering 3.7 km at a cost of more than $1.8 million dollars. In David, the work will be done around the Cervantes park, covering more than 2.2 kilometers, at a cost of $836,443 dollars.
The excavated areas will have chambers that will prevent water from damaging the system during floods, meanwhile the transformers currently hanging from electrical poles will be at ground level next to the sidewalks and others for lack of space will be underground, said Perez. The impact is visual, and dramatically reduces damages caused to power lines by birds, trees, or lightening strikes that affect service, as well as drivers who hit the electrical power poles. The project being carried out by Union Fenosa will also involve cables for telecommunications, said the source. (La Critica)






A study for the exploration of oil, natural gas and other petroleum products, to be held in Panama, was approved by the National Economic Council (CENA), reported yesterday by Deputy Economy Minister Frank de Lima. The company will identify potential areas near the Colombian-Panamanian border region, which could be exploited. "There are good indications of the existence of oil, and the commercial viability will be analyzed," he said. De Lima announced that as part of the study they will conduct drilling and geological analysis. The work will cost $ 476,765. (La Critica)
Another step forward. Yesterday there was a ceremony to mark the start of the construction of a new Prison Complex that will be known as "La Nueva Joya" (The New Jewel.) In 36 months, more than 5,500 prisoners will be moving into the new facilities, according to Public Security Minister, Jose Raul Mulino, which will be a decent and comfortable structure and not "sheds to store people" as we have now. After the Cabinet Council approved the signing of the contract for this project on 9 June 2010, the Colombian company UM Panamá was chosen to build the new facility.
Despite their best efforts, heavy rainfall prevented workers from completing the removal of a power line pole that fell over yesterday afternoon, blocking Calle 50. On Monday morning Calle 50 will be closed again, until all debris is collected and part of the power lines that fell in the street. Fortunately no one was injured, but this caused a traffic jam on the busy avenue. (Panama America)
The Ministry of Public Works will open the new access ramp to the Northern Corridor at Villa Lucre next Monday, and at the same time announced the opening of the Northern Corridor towards the area of Tocumen for the benefit of drivers and the community in general. Public Works Minister Federico Suarez said that during the first year of their administration, he has taken more than six months to reevaluate projects to benefit the community. He said they would begin construction on the expansion of the road from two to four lanes from Davisa in Chitré to Las Tablas, as well as the road from David to Boquete in the Chiriqui province. Among other projects to improve, expand, or upgrade existing roads, the highway from Arraijan and La Chorrera to the Autopista will be expanded from the current four lanes to six - three in each direction. Suarez also reported work continues on the extension of the Coastal Strip to San Felipe, which will give a new face to the area of Terraplén. Another important project completed during the last twelve months was the dredging of the Xixaola river channel, resulting in decreasing the risk of flooding in surrounding communities. Another important project in the works is the construction of sixteen overpasses in the Panama City area which will complement the Metrobus project. (TVN Noticias)
Work on the interceptor tunnel as part of the mega-project to clean up the Bay of Panama which will be built by the Odebrecht company could start as soon as August 2010, with the arrival in Panama of a new Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) - EPB Shield - made by the German company Herrenknecht. The tunnel should be completed by the end of 2012, with the help of this huge machine. The TBM is 177 meters long and 3.6 meters in diameter. It's worth more than $40 million dollars and has been named "Gloria" in honor of President Ricardo Martinelli's mother. The machine - painted with the colors of the Panamanian flag - will leave for Panama in the first week of July, to be assembled in about a month. The TBM was delivered on Tuesday in Schawanau, Germany, to executives of the Odebrecht company.
The Cabinet Council authorized the Ministry of Government and Justice to sign the contract for the Design, Construction, and Equipping of the New Prison Complex - the "Nueva Joya" - which will be delivered as a "turn key" project by the consortium UM Panama, the only bidder that fully met the requirements established in the Statement of Charges during the Prequalification Public Ceremony, held on 17 March 2010. The signing of this contract, for the sum of $148.1 million dollars (plus 5% tax) for a total of more than $155.5 million dollars, is for the design, construction, and equipping of a "prison city" of first world quality that would have a capacity to house approximately 5,500 prisoners. The construction of the new prison will take an estimated 36 months, and is expected to generate a significant number of both direct and indirect jobs. (TVN Noticias)
Employees from the company Norberto Odebrecht are now working in Curundú. The company has installed trailers that will serve as mobile office space for their people, who are conducting social, technical, and environmental studies of the area, as part of the project to renovate the troubled area in the heart of the city, which will cost a total of $94.3 million dollars. The presence of these simple trailers are the first tangible symbols of change for the impoverished neighborhood. (La Prensa)
Panama's Secretary of Energy, Juan Manuel Urriola, announced the possibility of developing geothermal energy in Panama to produce electricity. Urriola said the country has a geothermal capacity and that the concept will be "placed on the table" for possible future development. Urriola concluded that overall, Panama's ability to produce electricity is in a "healthy condition" and that he thinks that due to planning they will be in good shape from now and for the next five years. (TVN Noticias)
The old, dilapidated walls of the building known as the "Renta 10" located in Calidonia, one of the rental buildings built by the Social Insurance Fund between 1944 and 1948 for low-income families, began to be demolished yesterday. It took more than ten years to evict the 100 families who lived there, due to the economic compensation process. Its last inhabitants left the old structure in 2009. This building was the first of the "Rentas" built on Calle 22 and was designed by Architect Ricardo Bermúdez in 1944 under a concept of strict functionalism. (La Prensa)
Panama's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) submitted a draft of a plan to build a new airport in the central provinces yesterday, outlining the anticipated costs for the project. Yesterday the National Assembly reported the presentation by the CAA that totals about $100 million dollars. Although the National Assembly did not specify the location of the new airport, on Thursday president Ricardo Martinelli said it would be located in the town of Aguadulce in the Coclé province. Rafael Barcenas, the director of the CAA, said that so far this year they have invested approximately $40 million dollars in infrastructure. Barcenas spoke before the Communications and Transportation Commission of the National Assembly and presented a report on his management of the CAA. He said his primary objective is to budget and complete projects that were started (under the previous administration) but never finished. (La Estrella)
About $3.9 billion dollars will be invested over the next four years for the construction of 22 new sources of power generation in Panama. These projects will generate approximately 1,061 megawatts (MW) to be added to the current installed capacity of about 1.208 MW - which is very close to the actual demand of 1,153 MW. The biggest investment will be in new hydroelectric projects that will be built at a cost of more than $1.7 billion dollars. In addition two wind farms will be built with an investment of $1 billion, and another $1.2 billion will be spent to build new thermal (bunker fuel burning) generation plants. Currently there are 19 hydroelectric projects under construction with a total installed capacity of 723.60 MW, 2 wind projects (330 MW) and one thermal plant with an approved licensed (8 MW), according to the Public Services Authority (ASEP).

