RESSANO GARCIA — Gigawatt Mozambique officially opened a new $200m, 120 megawatt (MW) gas-fired power station in the border town of Ressano Garcia on Friday.
That will replace about 100MW of power currently being supplied to Mozambique by Eskom’s Arnot power station near Witbank.
A shortage of power is constraining economic development in Southern African countries, which for decades have relied on buying power from Eskom to supplement their own small-scale generation. Eskom’s capacity constraints are also affecting its neighbours.
The discovery of gas offshore Tanzania and northern Mozambique has increased interest in using gas for power in the region. South African energy giant Sasol already supplies gas to its own power station at Secunda, and to commercial customers, through an 865km pipeline from the Pande and Temane onshore gas fields in Southern Mozambique.
Sasol has also built a 175MW power station, with Mozambican power utility Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) as its partner, at Ressano Garcia, to supply Mozambique.
The new Gigawatt power station will supply to EDM on a long-term power purchase agreement, for distribution to the Mozambican market, and to sell any surplus to the Southern African Power Pool. Gigawatt is in discussions with EDM about adding another 40MW of capacity.
Gigawatt Mozambique is owned by various Mozambican shareholders and Centurion-based Gigajoule, whose shareholders include WBHO, Old Mutual and management. They contributed the equity for the new power station, and the debt facility was provided by Standard Bank. Gigajoule also has 49.6% of the Matola Gas Company, which sells gas through a pipeline to customers in Maputo.
Gigajoule CEO Johan de Vos said Gigajoule was evaluating its options for submitting a project under SA’s recently issued request for interest in independent gas-fired power. One option might be to add another 200MW of capacity to the existing site at Ressano Garcia, which has a concession for 350MW, or Gigajoule could build a new power plant at Matola.
Liquefied natural gas for the power plant could be imported using Gigajoule’s existing infrastructure at Matola.
Gigajoule has completed a feasibility study into building a 2,400km pipeline from the new Rovuma gas fields off Pemba in northern Mozambique, to bring gas to SA and various hubs in Mozambique. Some have said this concept would be far too costly, but Mr de Vos, who worked for the Sasol team that put together the 865km pipeline project, said these projects were feasible with the right offtake agreements.
Pylons carry electricity power lines past cooling towers at the Novovoronezh NPP-2 nuclear power station, operated by OAO Rosenergoatom, a unit of Rosatom, in Novovoronezh, Russia. Picture: BLOOMBERG
RESSANO GARCIA — Gigawatt Mozambique officially opened a new $200m, 120 megawatt (MW) gas-fired power station in the border town of Ressano Garcia on Friday.
That will replace about 100MW of power currently being supplied to Mozambique by Eskom’s Arnot power station near Witbank.
A shortage of power is constraining economic development in Southern African countries, which for decades have relied on buying power from Eskom to supplement their own small-scale generation. Eskom’s capacity constraints are also affecting its neighbours.
The discovery of gas offshore Tanzania and northern Mozambique has increased interest in using gas for power in the region. South African energy giant Sasol already supplies gas to its own power station at Secunda, and to commercial customers, through an 865km pipeline from the Pande and Temane onshore gas fields in Southern Mozambique.
Sasol has also built a 175MW power station, with Mozambican power utility Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) as its partner, at Ressano Garcia, to supply Mozambique.
The new Gigawatt power station will supply to EDM on a long-term power purchase agreement, for distribution to the Mozambican market, and to sell any surplus to the Southern African Power Pool. Gigawatt is in discussions with EDM about adding another 40MW of capacity.
Gigawatt Mozambique is owned by various Mozambican shareholders and Centurion-based Gigajoule, whose shareholders include WBHO, Old Mutual and management. They contributed the equity for the new power station, and the debt facility was provided by Standard Bank. Gigajoule also has 49.6% of the Matola Gas Company, which sells gas through a pipeline to customers in Maputo.
Gigajoule CEO Johan de Vos said Gigajoule was evaluating its options for submitting a project under SA’s recently issued request for interest in independent gas-fired power. One option might be to add another 200MW of capacity to the existing site at Ressano Garcia, which has a concession for 350MW, or Gigajoule could build a new power plant at Matola.
Liquefied natural gas for the power plant could be imported using Gigajoule’s existing infrastructure at Matola.
Gigajoule has completed a feasibility study into building a 2,400km pipeline from the new Rovuma gas fields off Pemba in northern Mozambique, to bring gas to SA and various hubs in Mozambique. Some have said this concept would be far too costly, but Mr de Vos, who worked for the Sasol team that put together the 865km pipeline project, said these projects were feasible with the right offtake agreements.
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