A year after the fire at the Central Metro Checkpoint (PCC 1), the Metro is still unable to collect the insurance policy because it has not even been possible to accurately determine the amount to which the losses and damages amount.
Via transparency, Political Animal asked to know the documents that proved that Grupo Mexicano de Seguros S.A. de C.V. – a firm that contracted the Collective Transport System (STC) to insure all its facilities during 2021 – had already paid for the damages registered after a short circuit generated a fire that consumed five of the 6 floors of the central building, according to the Prosecutor’s Office of the capital. however, the Metro confirmed that until December 14 the insurance had not been collected.
“… to date, the claim in question is in the process of adjustment and determination of the loss, which is why no payment has been obtained from the insurer as a recovery of the same, “said Oscar José Cadena Delgado, legal manager of the Metro, in the letter UT/4784/2021.
As stated in the annexes of the contract STC-CNCS-060/2020 through which the STC agreed the insurance policy throughout 2021 -and of which this medium has a copy-, the maximum limit of liability that the insurer has with the Metro is 5 thousand 328 million pesos, that is, if at a certain time the damages in the Central Control Post were greater than this amount, the insurance firm could not pay more because since the formalization of the contract this was stipulated.
“In the event of a claim covered by the terms of this policy, the Collective Transport System, through the Coordination of Inventories and Risk Management, will have the power to decide whether the respective payment will be made in cash or in kind. In case of being in kind, the STC will indicate the company and the way in which the repair work will be carried out, “reads the annexed clauses of the contract.
For 2021, the Metro contracted an insurance policy called “all good all risk, comprehensive damage insurance of the STC” for which it paid more than 346 million pesos divided into twelve monthly payments of 24 million 867 thousand pesos without VAT.
New high voltage station
The electrical installation where the fire started on the morning of January 9, 2021 had been in operation – in the basement of the Metro headquarters building – for months before the inauguration of the first line of the system in 1969, so while the agency and the insurer manage to agree on the payment for the damages, the Government of Mexico City is carrying out modernization work on what will be the new Buen Tono high-voltage electrical substation, a project that had already begun prior to last year’s accident.
“It is a very far-reaching project that will give life to the Metro, particularly the first lines for others, at least 50 years,” said the head of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum during the presentation of the project’s progress on December 14.
With the project in the Buen Tono High Voltage Electric Substation, we carried out the integral modernization of the supply, transmission and distribution of electrical energy for the @MetroCDMX: Lines 1, 2 and 3, mainly Line 1. A project that will allow greater efficiency. pic.twitter.com/sLM367IDbn
— Claudia Sheinbaum (@Claudiashein) December 14, 2021
At the moment, this work presents an 11% progress and the electromechanical work 14% so it is estimated that it will be completed in August 2022 when it will be able to supply energy (in a first stage) to Line 1 of the Metro, the oldest in the system. The overall work will have works until 2023 in order to provide energy also to lines 2 and 3 of the system.
The new electrical substation includes the construction of a new building – next to the damaged building – where the Energy Command Center will be installed to control the energy that will be supplied to Lines 1, 2 and 3. The transformers will no longer be in the basement, but underground, in chambers equipped exclusively for them.
After the fire of the Central Control Post (PCC 1) it was the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) that came to the rescue of the Metro that had six of the twelve inoperative lines. In the courtyard of the STC headquarters building, the CFE installed an Emerging Electric Power Center, which cost 230 million pesos, through which the six lines that had been left without electricity after the fire could be launched in a staggered manner.
Until 2023, the CFE will be in charge of commissioning 100% of the Buen Tono substation and moving the high voltage connections of lines 1, 2 and 3 of the system, the oldest and most affluent of the system. In total, the Government of Mexico City and the CFE established an investment agreement of 4,500 million pesos.
“After the experience we suffered, the transformers will be separated, they will not have any building or installation above them, they are state-of-the-art, high-end transformers, which we will be concluding the works in two phases: the first part of the buildings will be completed towards the end of March; and, the conclusion of the equipment, we estimate that it may be in August, or perhaps before August to, at that time, be able to give the transfer of the old substation to full operation in the new substation, “said Guillermo Calderón, director of the Metro, during a tour that Sheinbaum gave through the works area.
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