Delegates from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam met yesterday at the second meeting of the Joint Committee Working Group (JCWG) on the procedures for notification, prior consultation and agreement (PNPCA) for the Pakbeng hydropower project.
The Pakbaeng hydropower project is one of the five Mekong mainstream dams in northern Laos in the upper reaches of the Mekong River in Pakbaeng district, Oudomxay province.
The group reviewed and discuss the prior consultation process, in particular the preparation of the second draft Technical Report.
The meeting took place in Oudomxay province and was co-chaired by the Chief Executive Officer of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat, Mr Pham Tuan Phan, and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Mines’ Office, Dr Daovong Phonekeo.
The PNPCA Joint Committee Working Group met earlier this year at the MRC Secretariat in Vientiane to discuss the issues involved in the Prior Consultation Process of the Pakbaeng hydropower project, which was submitted by Laos for Prior Consultation in November 2016.
D uring the first meeting of the Joint Committee Working Group in January, the group discussed several issues and agreed on the overall roadmap in which a number of key milestones and activities need to be carried out to implement the six-month Prior Consultation Process for the Pakbaeng hydropower project.
One among the decisions made was the consensual agreement on the official starting date of the Prior Consultation Process on December 20, 2016, Dr Daovong Phonekeo noted in his opening remarks.
Since the first meeting in January, a number of remarkable activities have been done both at national and regional levels. At the national level, some consultations and information sharing has been conducted. At the regional level, the MRC Secretariat held the first Stakeholder Forum on February 22 with remarkable outcomes and feedback from diverse stakeholders as already reported by the MRC Secretariat, he added.
Aside from the first stakeholder forum, the MRC Secretariat with support from experienced international experts has undertaken a detailed technical review of the submitted Pakbaeng hydropower project documents.
The preliminary results of this technical review, contained in the submitted first draft Technical Review Report, served as the main topic for the day’s discussions.
It is therefore important for the members of the PNPCA Joint Committee Working Group to extend full support and provide strategic guidance to the MRC Secretariat by ensuring that at the off-set of this meeting the MRC Secretariat can refer to the outcome of this meeting in furthering and coming up with the second draft Technical Review Report. This will be used for the planned second Stakeholder Forum in May this year, said Dr Daovong.
The proposed dam site is 140km from the provincial capital of Oudomxay province and has a straight-line distance of 270km from Vientiane and 190km and 20km from the border with China and Thailand, respectively.
The purpose of this project is to utilise Laos’ hydropower resources to produce power for domestic supply and export.
The project was designed by Chinese developer Datang Overseas Investment Co., Ltd. through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Lao and Chinese governments signed in August 2007.
The project is designed as a run-of-river dam. The total capacity will be 912MW with an average annual generation of 4.775 GWh.
Meeting delegates travelled to Pakbaeng district to observe the project site.
