A consortium formed by China’s State Grid Brazil Holding and two Brazilian companies was announced to win a bid to build a transmission line connecting the Belo Monte hydropower plant to the southern state of Minas Gerais, near Sao Paulo, and converter stations on Feb 7, 2014.
This is the first ultra-high-voltage transmission project China has won overseas.
On July 17, 2015, the State Grid won a contract to build a gigantic transmission line for the Belo Monde hydroelectric dam, located deep in the Amazon rainforest.
The State Grid Corp made the lowest bid with a minimum margin of 0.1 percent by offering to operate the dam’s second power line.
In the bid, the winning offer placed the Spanish firm Abengoa in second place and Brazil’s largest power company Eletrobras in the third place.
These two power lines are the landmark projects of the export of the State Grid’s extra-high-voltage technology.
Pan Yuehui is the financial team leader of the two bids. The team was mainly in charge of valuation, financing framework design and tax planning.
“Briefly speaking, the final bid is calculated by the financial team based on the analysis of the data of the project management team and operation team,” Pan said, adding that the accuracy of data is fairly crucial to the bid.
Pan Yuehui (1st from right) in a group photo taken at the inauguration ceremony of the Phase I of the Belo Monde hydroelectric dam. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
The team surmounted numerous difficulties and hardships to succeed in the bids.
As the first bid was won by the State Grid and two subsidiaries of Eletrobras -- Furnas and Eletronorte, Pan Yuehui had to communicate repeatedly with representatives from the two other partners and tried to decide on some key parameters that may affect the bidding valuation.
In order to reach an agreement on the parameters, no matter how many times he had tried before, Pan explained to them extremely patiently and politely. His professionalism and patience earned the recognition of the partners.
In the second bid for the Phase II of the project, Pan’s team thoroughly studied the competitors, including the data of their previous bids and finally calculated the major rival -- Spanish firm Abengoa's possible bid, and then took the domestically developed UHV technology abroad once again.
In the final stage of preparation, Pan slept only seven hours in the entire week, with a daily average of only one hour. Meanwhile, he also had to keep a clear mind and keen judgment.
Besides the hard work, the figure “0.1 percent” has a lot to do with Pan’s professional competence. In the recent three years, he was approved as a certified public accountant, a chartered financial analyst and graduated from the MBA program from one of the world’s top business school.
However, he was not a frail-looking intellectual. His fortitude and optimism were recognized by his colleagues when he worked on his first project abroad.
Pan Yuehui (C) poses for photo with his colleagues at a road construction site in Tanzania. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
Pan responded to the company's call to work in Tanzania at the age of 23 in December 2004, when he had worked in the State Grid Corporation for no more than one year.
Due to the harsh environment and infectious diseases, Pan was infected with malaria, one of the most common infectious diseases transmitted by mosquito bites in Africa. He suffered from headache, chill and fever.
What’s worse, the workers at the road construction project often had nothing to eat due to poor infrastructure facilities and logistics.
There were usually not enough employees in overseas projects. Apart from his own duties, Pan always did work outside his job description, such as payment and project survey.
Although he lived in a discarded container, which was not designed for living, he recalled those days as “bittersweet”, because he knew the value of his work and gained friendship.
“Since I started to work in Brazil in 2010, I witnessed the birth and development of the State Grid Brazil Holding,” Pan said with pride.
With the joint efforts of all the workers, it grew to become the second largest power transmission franchisee in Brazil.
Pan (1st from right) and his friends in Brazil [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
(Executive editor: Hao Wen)
