Comparison of Muskrat Falls with Romaine Complex

The Romaine Complex is a hydro project which is contemporary of Muskrat Falls and nearby.  Hydro Quebec has the summary information published here:

http://www.hydroquebec.com/projects/romaine.html

Here is a table comparing the two projects:

Muskrat Falls	Romaine Complex
824 MW	1550 MW
$ 2.9 billion (excl subsea and island links cost)	$ 6.5 billion
3,519,417 dollars per MW	4,193,548 dollars per MW
existing transportation links	150 km of new roads need construction
two damns at one river point	four dams and four generating stations
Engineering and Construction contractor SNC Lavalin	Engineering and Construction contractor SNC Lavalin

The Romaine Complex has a much more work to be done and greater difficulty with transportation over land, while Muskrat Falls is close to the sea port at Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

SNC Lavalin is a giant in this area, doing hydro power construction as well as transmission lines in many countries around the world.

Lately there have been news articles about their ex-CEO being charged with fraud and a VP being fired.

Here is a Financial Post article discussing the general concerns raised about this company and the impact it has on our trust in public-private partnerships.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/11/30/snc-lavalin-fraud-charges-a-wake-up-call-for-stakeholders-in-public-private-partnerships/

Quote from the above article: The massive scale of public-private partnerships — which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars — make the projects more of a magnet for greed, experts say in the wake of a corruption scandal involving construction giant SNC-Lavalin Inc.

This and my comparison with Churchill Falls (previous blog post) via the inflation calculator, raises the question of how much markup is there in engineering and construction work by SNC Lavalin.  Do we just say yes to whatever billion dollar figure is quoted?

Another piece of coverage by Canadian Business magazine:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/snc-lavalin-case-signals-corruption-crackdown-in-canada/

Some interesting reader comments at the end of that story as well.

The whole picture feels like one of those Fifth Estate stories digging into details of a story from the past.  Typically they might ask: "what did you know and when did you know it", for which some people will cover their butt, and others will be saying they could not say anything.  The problem is, that time might be the present, and wouldn't it be better to do something now rather than wait for the deal to be complete?    If it isn't questioned now, everyone is stuck with another insane long term mistake like the Churchill Falls/Hydro Quebec deal.