This article that Ravenlocke just posted (copied following) in the Turmoil in Ecuador thread fills in the gaps-- at least, gaps in the story of Ecuador's Chinese Communist Party-created crisis.
Though the similar problems of other nations which have fallen into the trap of the CCP's Belt and Road Initiative are even worse in many cases.
I've posted articles about all that, but they have largely been ignored.
Hopefully those days are over now...
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From: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1683667
https://gk.city/2025/08/27/que-es-hi...clair-ecuador/
5 keys to the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant
It provides about 28% of energy to the country, but in the season of drying its production decreases and generates a deficit at the national level. That's not the only problem it causes.
Emilia Paz and Miño · Last updated August 27, 2025
The Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant is the largest in Ecuador. Its power is 1500 megawatts and, depending on the time of year, it generates between 28% and 30% of the energy that the country needs. This amount can supply about 5.3 million households.
Coca Codo was one of the emblematic projects of President Rafael Correa, who ruled between 2007 and 2017. With hydroelectric plants, the government sought to transform Ecuador's energy matrix away from the thermal generation that requires fossil fuels, such as oil.
In May 2024, the hydroelectric power plant stopped its operation due to an accumulation of sediments in the catchment area. To protect the infrastructure, the gates were closed and, to refuel the electricity service, thermoelectric plants were activated. The interruption of the operation of the Coca Codo hydroelectric power plant aggravated the energy crisis of that year in which there were blackouts of 14 hours a day in some sectors of the country.
But it is not the first time that hydroelectric power has caused problems to the country.
Its construction had several questions such as the modality of the contract, which was under the figure of "try-key". That is, all the necessary contracting for the work is in the hands of the contracting company, and only once the project is ready, it is delivered to the State.
The disadvantage of these contracts is that the supervision is much more complex because "there are no such defined delivery milestones as in other contractual processes," Andrés Lozano, co-author of the Chinese Investments report, told GK, how have they affected institutionality in Ecuador?, in 2023. This, he added, makes it difficult to take "correctives at the right times."
The lack of revisions resulted in countless cracks in the structure, which led to lawsuits against the construction company. These problems, added to the regressive erosion of the Coca River, which is getting closer to the hydroelectric plant, have caused higher costs for Ecuador, and almost ten years after its inauguration it has not been officially delivered to the State.
We tell you 4 keys to the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant.
The largest hydroelectric power plant in Ecuador
The Coca Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Power Plant is a megaproject that began its construction in July 2010 and was inaugurated on November 18, 2016, during the government of Rafael Correa.
Its power is 1500 megawatts, which could supply electricity to the entire city of Quito and Guayaquil, and would be left over. Ecuador's total energy demand is about 5,000 megawatts; in May 2025, according to the National Electricity Operator (Cenace), the demand reached 5,110. Coca Codo usually supplys up to 30% of that demand.
The hydroelectric plant is in the cantons of El Chaco, province of Napo, and Gonzalo Pizarro, province of Sucumbios. "In the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest" as Jorge Glas, then vice president of Ecuador, said at the inauguration of the project.
Since it began operating, in April 2016, and until July 2022 (which is the last date of official information available), it had generated just over 39,000 gigawatts for the country.
The Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant uses water from the Quijos and Salado rivers, which form the Coca River, to generate electricity. The complex is composed in this way and works like this:
Capture work: It remparts the water from the Coca River and directs it towards the desander, where the particles are cleaned. Then, go to the driving tunnel.
Driving tunnel: It has a length of 24.8 kilometers and carries the captured water to the compensating reservoir.
Compensating reservoir: It is a dam that stores water during the day and releases it during the hours of highest consumption. From here it is sent to the pressure pipes.
Pressure pipes: They are two ducts that carry the water at high speed and pressure to the engine room.
Engine house: It has two caverns;
Generator cave: Pressurized water moves 8 turbines that are connected to generators that produce electricity.
Transformer Cave: The electricity is adjusted to an adequate voltage level to be sent to the national grid.
Used water returns to the Coca River.
The work has not been officially delivered
Since it was conceived, the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant was described as a national priority and part of a strategic plan of the Correa government.
With hydroelectric plants, the President had three objectives:
Stop buying energy from other countries such as Colombia during dry seasons - when rivers have a minimum flow due to droughts.
Get away from the energy generated by thermoelectric plants - in December 2018, Ecuador had 204 - and switch to cleaner and renewable energy.
Establish an alliance with China since it was built by the Chinese company Sinohydro with financing from the EximBank of that country.
The project initially cost about $1,979 million, according to the 2009 contract. In 2023, the cost amounted to just over $2,439 million, excluding VAT.
In 2023, when the price exceeded $2 billion, the Corporación Eléctrica del Ecuador (Celec), which operates and administers the plant, told GK that the cost overruns come from taxes, price adjustments and exchange orders included in the agreement.
But the value could still rise.
Until August 2025, the hydroelectric power plant has not been officially delivered to Ecuador, due to the technical, physical and legal problems it has that were analyzed by the Comptroller General of the State, since before its construction.
The problems of hydroelectric power are part of several special examinations carried out between 2010 and 2016 by the Comptroller General of the State.
The Comptroller's office found that, between 2010 and 2012, there were delays in delivery schedules, lack of delivery of quality control manuals, zero verification of the state of concrete and steel, disorderly handling of documentation and invoices by Sinohydro, the construction company.
In the special examination that analyzed what happened between 2012 and 2015, the Comptroller's offeration discovered that due to delays in the first phase of the project, Ecuador lost 81 million dollars in fine that it did not charge.
And in the 2016 report, when the hydroelectric company began its operation, they discovered that the cost of the project reached 2 billion dollars, exceeding the original contractual amount of 1,979 million.
In 2025, the project accumulates more than 17,000 fissures, according to Celec, so it cannot operate at 100% of its capacity.
Another impediment to the delivery of the hydroelectric power is the international arbitration process that Celec initiated in May 2021 against Sinohydro, due to the multiple failures in the construction.
The construction has multiple fissures
In 2014, four years after the start of construction, and after a report from the Comptroller's S office, Sinohydro hired audits to respond to the institution's observations and certify that its teams met the standards. But the audits determined that the parts for the turbines, manufactured and shipped from China, had faults.
In addition, in another report, the Comptroller's office says that the quality control documents of these parts and others of the hydroelectric plant had been altered and "do not cly to reality."
That year, the inspection of the auditing company detected 7,648 cracks in the eight distributors - which carry water to the turbines - that were inside the concrete walls on the inside of the plant.
Sinohydro - which according to a 2021 Celec report remained silent about these problems for at least two years - tried to solve the cracks by welding the metal. It is assumed that by 2015, at least three distributors were arranged that way.
In 2019, other reports from the Comptroller's office revealed that the water was piercing the steel of the distributors and that it was already wetting the concrete that covers them. The Comptroller ordered Sinohydro to replace the eight distributors and to take over the cost. But he didn't.
The 2018, 2019 and 2021 Celec inspections concluded that there was nothing to do with some cracks, especially those that bordered directly with the concrete. And that the pieces had to be replaced.
By 2023 there were already more than 17,000 cracks in the distributors that had not been able to be repaired and that with the operation of the hydroelectric plant continued to grow.
But cracks are not the only problem that presents a danger to the operation of the megaproject.
Regressive erosion, a constant threat to the project
The regressive erosion - when the exterior of a river sticks a lot to the slope and is eating it - of the Coca River, increasingly advances upstream and puts "at risk the water intake work of the hydroelectric," according to the government.
According to the Celec report of August 20, 2025, regressive erosion is already 3.6 kilometers from the Coca Codo capture works. If it reaches the plant, it would put its operation at risk, affect its useful life and the energy supply would be reduced.
One of the reasons why erosion is so close to the work would be the lack of updated environmental studies before the hydroelectric power plant was built, since they ignored the problem of regressive erosion in the place - that is, on the slopes of the Coca River - according to Alfredo Carrasco, a geologist engineer, told GK in 2023.
Erosion would be the reason why the San Rafael waterfall, located in the Cayambe-Coca National Park, disappeared on February 2, 2020.
In the study Coca Codo Sinclair & the erosive process in the high Coca, of the Andean Rivers Observatory, of June 2021, he says that for the cause of the collapse of the San Rafael waterfall there are two hypotheses that "must be analyzed through more scientific studies."
The first is that it was a purely natural phenomenon and that it was known that sooner or later it would happen since since the 1980s there were reports that warned of erosion.
Carrasco told GK that there was negligence on the part of the State not to "understand this erosion process, nor to do the appropriate monitoring" or update the environmental impact studies.
The second hypothesis is that the changes in the shape of the river and the terrain caused by the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair capture work "could play a decisive role in the weakening and collapse of the waterfall," says the report.
He also mentions that since the collapse of the waterfall "the erosive process has advanced at an alarming rate of approximately 8 kilometers in less than nine months." And that the number is still increasing.
In August 2025, the government of Daniel Noboa, through the Ministry of Energy and Mines and Celec, says it is carrying out "urgent and permanent actions to protect the water capture" of Coca Codo.
For the government, the regressive erosion of the Coca River is "a unique natural phenomenon in the world that threatens the most important generation infrastructure in the country."
Some of the temporary actions, according to the government statement, are making large rock walls, stabilization of slopes and partial detours of the river. The permanent solutions are:
Make an underground structure downstream of the catchment to stop erosion and protect the water intakes of the plant (it was completed in 2023)
Build a permeable dam to widen the width of the river and reduce the strength of the water (according to the government, it has a 60% advance)
A stepped landfill to dissipate the erosive power of water (according to the government, construction has not yet begun)
And deviate two kilometers from the river (according to the government, it is still in the study phase)
Face at least two legal problems
Construction failures and problems with cracks that were increasing in size, led Celec to file a request for international arbitration against Sinohydro, the construction company, before the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Santiago de Chile on May 17, 2021.
In response, Sinohydro (a subsidiary of PowerChina, a construction group) proposed a 50-year concession, in which it would assume the repair of structural problems and sell the energy to the country.
The arbitration is still ongoing.
On July 8, 2025, Gabriela Sommerfeld, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, told Teleamazonas that PowerChina will take charge of the operation and maintenance of Coca Codo.
He also said that the construction group agreed to pay 400 million dollars for construction failures. The money will arrive in the country until December 2026, according to the chancellor.
That same day, Inés Manzano, Minister of Energy and Mines, at a press conference said that they also signed a conciliation agreement to "leave arbitration." "All that has a process. We have three legal documents prior to doing it," said the minister, without giving more details.
But arbitration is not the only legal entanglement around Coca Codo.
An investigation by the Prosecutor's Office called the Sinohydro case, formerly Ina Papers, investigates the crime of bribery in the construction of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant. According to the Prosecutor's Office, to build it, they would have given 76 million dollars in bribes - the highest amount of a bribe in the history of the country.
Of the 25 people who are prosecuted, the most important character is Lenin Moreno, former president and vice president of Ecuador for whom, on April 19, 2023, the Prosecutor's Office asked for preventive detention. But the judge denied the measure and replaced it with periodic presentations. Since Moreno does not live in Ecuador, the Prosecutor's Office asked the justice system to notify Interpol to locate him.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, in 2010, due to his close relationship and friendship with the then ambassador of the People's Republic of China in Ecuador, Cai Runguo, Moreno - then Vice President - managed to reach the financing agreement with the EximBank eight months after the signing of the contract, which required more guarantees than those agreed at the beginning.
The money for the emblematic work arrived in June 2010.
A month later, the Commercial company Recorsa, owned by Conto Patiño, a friend of Lenin Moreno and representative of Sinohydro in the country, opened an account at Banco Pichincha Panama.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, it would be through that account that the Chinese company would have sent money, with transactions made from an account in the name of Sinohydro, of the Bank of China.
75 and a half million dollars would have reached that account, according to the theory of the Prosecutor's Office. The remaining 500 thousand dollars would have been deposited in another account in Panama.
The Prosecutor's Office says that Conto Patiño would have distributed the money to the other 36 people who are prosecuted in the case.
In addition to Moreno, there is his wife, Rocío González, one of his daughters, Irina Moreno, and his brother, Edwin Moreno. Patiño's children and even one of his granddaughters, Victoria Patiño, are also part of the process.
On March 23, 2023, former President Lenin Moreno wrote in his X account "I never had responsibility, attributions or capacity to influence strategic projects during Rafael Correa's government."
In 2025, Moreno is still out of the country and the Sinohydro case is still in process.[/QUOTE]
Re: Chinese and anti-Chinese propaganda — what's the truth?
Posted by onawah (here)
Reply With Quote
But the point here is how the issue is being used as propaganda.
which they apparently consider to be safer than taking action. 
...not the journalists.
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