Namibia gas dream gets funding

[Laf1986]

Namibia’s dream of using gas could become a reality after the Kudu Gas project in the southern part of the country was allocated 4.93 billion Namibian dollars (406 million U.S. dollars) Tuesday.

The Kudu gas field lies in the Orange Sub-basin at a water depth of 560 feet. It is estimated that the field holds 1.4 trillion cubic feet and possible reserves at nine trillion cubic feet. It could last for 23 years.
The Kudu Power Station will be the first Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station of this size in Southern Africa and is expected to be commissioned by end of 2017.
The first phase of the project is expected to start any time soon.
The project is estimated to cost about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars.

When completed, Kudu Power Station will provide 800 MW and will supply some countries in the Southern African Development Community region among them Zambia and South Africa.
At the moment, Namibia is a net electricity importer, getting more than 60 percent of its energy requirements from Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The project is run by NamPower and the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (Namcor), with Tullow Oil and Itochu having 31 percent and 15 percent respectively.
Development of the power station is being done by NamPower and the Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) of Zambia, which is an emerging independent power generating company.
Upon completion, it will be the first large power station to have been developed in Namibia by the Namibian government.
Kudu Gas Field was discovered in 1973 by Chevron, and the first attempt to commercialise the Kudu gas resource for power generation was mooted shortly after independence in 1990.
In 1997, a tripartite agreement between NamPower, Eskom and Shell Exploration & Production Namibia (SEPN) was signed in 1997 to develop the power station outside the southern town Oranjemund.
Over time, the project has underwent several structural development changes and faced several delays mainly because of its complexity and lack of funding.
Last year in November, NamPower said moving such big project requires substantial government support and that the success of Kudu Gas depends largely on support from the Namibian Government in terms of guarantees to Namcor and NamPower in particular as lead developers.
Presenting the 2015/16 National Budget in Windhoek, the minister of finance, Calle Schlettwein, said 4.93 billion Namibian dollars (406 million U.S dollars) go to NamPower and Namcor for the construction of Kudu Gas project.
The allocation comes after NamPower had gone onto the market looking for equity partners to partially finance the 1.1 billion U. S. project. Enditem