The multi-billion Lom-Pangar Hydroelectric Dam project witnessed a turning point on August 12, 2011 when Cameroon Electricity Corporation (EDC) entered into partnership with a Chinese consortium, China International Water & Electric Corporation (CWE), for the latter to carry to fruition the dream of journeying out of darkness with 30 MW plant. According to the terms of the contract, CWE was given 38 months, from the date of signature, to deliver. Since then, the contractor has been multiplying its presence on the field, carrying out other works that would facilitate construction proper when the foundation stone is laid.
Since the beginning of the ongoing fiscal year, the affected populations have been compensated and those displaced resettled in what is commonly known in Lom and Djerem Division today as New Lom-Pangar. Even before then, government and the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO) on February 17, 2012 signed a pre-financing agreement for the latter to move the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline from the construction site of the Lom-Pangar Dam which otherwise would have flooded some 26 km of the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, disrupting community life and ecosystems in the Deng Deng Forest.
For efficiency in executing the project, government selected the Coyne et Bellier/ISL consortium to carry out the supervisory work of the Lom Pangar hydroelectricity project. The consortium is also building the capacities of the personnel of the country’s Electricity Development Corporation (EDC) in view of ensuring an excellent execution of the project.
With all of these in place, the dam will be outpoured by December 2012 and the construction proper by July 2014, meanwhile the 90 kV high-tension transmission line is due for 2016.
The project consists in building a six billion-cubic metre water reservoir, an electricity plant of 30 megawatts and a high tension line of 90 kV. With this, 170 megawatts of additional energy will be produced and the project will assist others along the Sanaga River like the Nachtigal dam and Song Mbengue dam to function optimally.
CWE is reputed in Cameroon for the construction of the Ladgo hydroelectric plant (North Region) within the platform of Sino-Cameroon relations which was inaugurated in 1986 by President Paul Biya.
