Thailand’s PTT Group and an Indian consortium have been chosen by the Yangon “New City” megaproject developer to supply and distribute electricity and natural gas.
New Yangon City Development (NYDC), the municipal government-owned company in charge of the scheme, this week announced that PPT Group, comprising PTT, PTTEP and GPSC, would be tasked with power supply and distribution while a consortium of India’s leading natural gas distributer Indraprastha Gas and state-owned Gail would supply and distribute natural gas.
Requests for Expression of Interest were made last February and the two groups were selected out of 34 submissions. “The evaluation was conducted via a ‘gated’ approach comprising face-to-face interviews and holistic assessment of the applicants covering technical experience, technical capacity and financial capacity,” NYDC said. “Qualified applicants who passed the minimum selection criteria were ranked based on their technical and financial capacity and the top three applicants were selected for a second round of interviews.” PTT and the consortium will undertake preliminary works and feasibility studies to prepare for the Pre-Project Documents (PPD), upon which an “NYDC Challenge” will be conducted, the developer said. The NYDC Challenge means a second party can challenge the chosen companies with a lower bid. The chosen companies will be allowed to match the offer or forgo the contract. If they choose to forgo, the second party will be awarded the contract but will be obliged to reimburse all costs incurred in connection with the preparation and submission of the PPD. Results of four tenders remain to be released, involving cyber connectivity, public transport, waste management and a convention centre.  In total, the developer said it had received 77 EOI submissions from 45 companies or consortia.
Launched by the regional government in March 2018, the new city project covers an area twice the size of Singapore with a target of US$1.5 billion (K2.83 trillion) investment. The first phase involves 88.30 square kilometres which encompasses land on the western bank of the Yangon River. The developer subsequently signed an agreement with China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to prepare detailed PPD for two bridges, roads, power plants, water and wastewater treatment plants and a 10-square-kilometre industrial estate. It came under fire for doing so without calling a tender. The body said this was to “avoid wasting time” and it would carry out an NYDC Challenge instead.