| |
CIC Energy retains 2013 electricity target
Brendan Ryan
Posted: Wed, 23 Jul 2008
[miningmx.com] -- THE first stage of CIC Energy’s proposed Mmamabula coal-fired power station project in Botswana is likely to be resized to 1,200 mega watts (MW) instead of the originally planned 2,400MW, said chief operating officer Tore Horvei.
Speaking at the Botswana Resource Sector Conference being held in Gaborone, Horvei said it was hoped the first generating set at the power station would still come on-line as planned for 2013.
He added that clearing of the site to allow construction work on the plant to start should begin by the end of the year.
Horvei said it was likely Mmamabula would go for 600MW generating sets instead of the 800MW sets originally planned which would have been the same size as the sets Eskom intends installing at its Medupi and “Project Bravo” power stations.
Mmamabula is “Project Delta” on Eskom’s new power supply and
construction programme. The downsizing and any delay to the project has negative implications for the utility’s plans to cope with South Africa’s power crisis.
According to Eskom spokesman Fani Zulu, the construction of Project Bravo near Witbank – which started in June – will help Eskom cope with changes to Mmamabula in the short-term but the medium and longer-term impact was not clear at this stage.
CIC announced last month that it had missed a deadline to agree terms with its preferred contractor on the allocation of financial risk during the construction phase of the project. As a result CIC had lost its “slots” to be able to order the required equipment from the manufacturers.
Horvei said that resulted from the changed state of the market where conditions had swung radically in favour of the contractors and against the project promoters because of the intense level of demand internationally for this kind of specialised project.
CIC was unable to get Eskom and the Botswana Power Corporation – which will buy the power from Mmamabula – to agree to take on some of that financial risk.
“You can no longer get the terms and conditions from contractors that you could get just two years ago. There are far more contractors available that can provide the 600MW sets so we should be able to negotiate better terms but the
promoters are clearly going to have to take on some of the financial risks involved in the contract.”
Turning to CIC’s plans to export coal from the Mmamabula project, Horvei said updated resource figures were due to be published shortly which would significantly increase the volume of export quality coal contained in the deposit.
He said this had significant implications because it meant CIC would be able to underpin proposed export volumes on a “ship or pay” basis along the proposed 1,500km Trans-Kalahari railway line which would be built from Mmamabula to Namibia.
Horvei said the proposals were assessing taking the line to the ports of either Walvis Bay or Luderitz in Namibia where the coal would be loaded onto ships for export.
He said CIC hoped to have commercial coal export operations underway from 2014.
| |
