Covid-19 hampering CLSG project commissioning – GM discloses

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to hamper TRANSCO CLSG’s progress to begin commercial operations, the General Manager has revealed.

However, Mr. Mohammed M. Sherif assured that despite these challenges, the project has achieved a key milestone including the completion of construction works for the entire transmission line segment from Man to Monrovia.

Mr. Sherif disclosed that the overall project progress rate is estimated at 89% as at the end of November 2020. To this end, the revised commissioning projection is scheduled to commence in January 2021.

In his report to the Board of Directors at its 23rd meeting in Abidjan on Monday, December 8, 2020, Mr. Mohammed Sherif, who addressed the meeting virtually disclosed that the Management of TRANSCO CLSG had no choice but to push back the start of commercial operations from December 2020 to February 2021.

“Critical works to connect the CLSG substation with the existing substation at Mount Coffee were delayed as experts from China were not able to arrive on site as planned,” the General Manager explained.

He informed the Board that full connection with Cote d’Ivoire network at Man substation will be done in the coming week once the requested outage is granted by the Power Utility.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Board Mr. Amidou Traore thanked the Management of TRANSCO CLSG for making enormous progress in the project implementation, despite serious challenges including the Covid-19 pandemic. “I am impressed with the report. It is precise and clear. Thank you for the achievement so far and we look towards the commissioning very soon.”