Start of Beluluane power plant construction postponed to 2023 – Carta

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Start of Beluluane power plant construction postponed to 2023 – Carta

3:32 CAT | 03 Jun 2022

File photo: Beluluane Industrial Park

Construction of the Beluluane Thermal Power Plant will no longer start in the middle of this year as previously envisaged, project coordinator Marco Morgado told ‘Carta’ on Day One of the 8th Mining, Oil and Gas and Energy conference in Maputo.

Allied to the power plant postponement, the start of the Beluluane Gas Company operations will also be delayed.

The latter venture foresees the annual import of 200 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for consumption and the generation of electric energy within Mozambique and the region.

“Construction will not start this year. We have suffered a slight delay. It will start in the middle of next year [2023], but this does not affect the forecast start of operations in 2026,” Morgado said.

Morgado, who is also General Director of Operations at Gigawatt, the Mozambican company that operates the 100 MW natural gas power plant in Ressano Garcia, Maputo province, says the set-back is due to a delay in taking the final investment decision on the project. That should now take place by the end of the current year, while the signing of LNG supply contracts is being concluded.

“What contributed to the delay is the fact that we are finalising the contracts for the supply of natural gas. We have established contacts with some policy makers, there was some delay in the decision, but we will still be ready to start [operations] in 2026,” said the source.

The forecast that the projects would start in the middle of this year was announced on November 28, 2019, during the signing, between Gigajoule, the natural gas infrastructure operator in the southern African region, and the French oil company Total, of an joint development project agreement for the annual import of 200 million metric tons of LNG for consumption and generation of electricity within Mozambique and the region.

It was said at the time that the LNG would be sourced by Total from different parts of the world to be unloaded at a floating storage and regasification unit at the Porto da Matola. From there, a gas pipeline to the new 2000 megawatt power plant in the Beluluane Industrial Park, Maputo province, would be built, distribution and marketing in the southern African region being undertaken by the Matola Gas Company (MGC ),-a Gigajoule partner.

ALSO READ: Gigajoule and Total sign Joint Development Agreement for the importation of LNG and power generation

The pipeline network, port infrastructure and connection to the pipeline network in the region through MGC’s existing gas infrastructure will cost around US$350 million. The total cost of the 2000 megawatt power plant, which will be built in phases according to the growing needs of the energy market, will be around US$2.8 billion.

In addition to Gigajoule, TotalEnergies and MGC, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) and Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) are also project partners.

By Evaristo Chilingue

Source: Carta de Moçambique