Guri Dam Project Management Case Study

Case III: Guri Dam

The Guri Dam Project was one that brought a lasting solution to Venezuela’s economic development and stability. In the 1940, the Venezuelan government started to realize that the countries oil reserves would soon be diminished and took the bold initiative to transition from hydrocarbon to hydroelectric- generated power as the main source of electricity. Over the course of 10 years, an international consulting firm studied local rivers to analyze which held the greatest potential for the hydraulic power needed. Venezuela’s second largest river, Caroní River, the site to begin the project was 100km upstream at the Necuima Canyon.

Due to the size of the project, as well as significant funding from the World Bank, the Venezuelan government created Corporation Venezolana de Guayan (CVG) whose mission was to study, develop, and organize the project with the mission of building a dam that could store a large volume of water while providing efficient electric power supply to Venezuela. Since this was an extensive project in need of crafted expertise, CVG created our organization, Electrificadora del Caroni, C.A. (EDELCA) to coordinate the project and its subsequent operations.

The project was completed over a 23-year long period in two phases of construction to ensure the region would be able to absorb the generate power. While this made it difficult to finance, our organization focused our efforts on quality as our main concern. With over 70 national and transnational organizations on board, we ensured that each preliminary step was completed above par. The initial phase of the project was completed as planned, due to functionality success and a fast-growing demand for electric power resulting in a major change in the number of power units from five to ten. The final stage began earlier than planned and because of energy sales produced during the initial phase, CVG and EDELCA were able to not only help finance the project but account for the...