At 10:16 am, Nov. 16th, the main dam diversion tunnel of Tatay Hydropower Station started impoundment.  

The impoundment ceremony was grandly held on the viewing stand of the main dam construction site. Over 100 people including officials from Cambodia, representatives of the Contractor, and journalists of Cambodia participated in the ceremony. Governor of Koh Kong Province delivered sincere congratulations to the successful impoundment of Tatay Hydropower Station, and fully confirmed the good cooperation between CHMC and the provincial government. He said the government would as always attach importance and support all the work of CHMC. And Mr. Zhu Xu, vice president of CHMC and GM of Tatay Hydropower Station Corp. Ltd. extended thanks on the ceremony.

As per requirement of project construction, before impoundment, the project had already received the quality approval from the Chinese expert panel and Proyry (Swiss) consigned by Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy of Cambodia(MIME), and got the approval of impoundment issued by MIME on Nov. 13th.

After 48 hours impoundment, the reservoir water level reached upto 153m, and river level upto 24m. Tatay hydropower station is the BOT project invested overseas by CHMC with total amount of USD540 million, the biggest investment made by Chinese enterprise so far in Cambodia. The project officially started on Mar. 2010, and in the year end, the goal of main riverbed closure was achieved; in 2011, the main dam passed the flood season safely；in 2012, the auxiliary dam passed the flood season safely and the spillway had the initial capacity for flood carrying.  The success of impoundment marked new significance of the project construction, which laid a solid foundation for the power generation before the flood season in 2014.