Azerbaijan, Baku, May 26/Trend M. Moezzi
Fifteen months after a Chinese company signed an agreement to build the world's highest concrete dam for Iran, it has been replaced by an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
China's Sinohydro signed the $2 billion contract to build Iran's Bakhtiari Dam and power station at a 2011 ceremony attended by Energy Minister Majid Namjoo and China's Ambassador to Iran, Yu Hongyang, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reports.
Now Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters will build Bakhtiari Dam instead.
The Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters will be responsible for the project's funding while the Energy Ministry will sell some of its properties as barter with the headquarters. In Iran's contract with Sinohydro, the Chinese company was to offer a price for the project to be approved by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). But the CBI didn't approve the project and Sinohydro was replaced by Khatam al-Anbiya.
The Bakhtiari Dam is to be the world's tallest double-arched concrete dam with the capacity to produce 1,500 megawatts of energy annually. It is to be in western Iran's Lorestan Province.
Sinohydro ranked 31 among the world's 225 dam building companies. It is in the midst of those building the world's biggest dam in China.