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Gigawatt Mozambique Opens 120MW Gas-Fired Power Station

Gigawatt Mozambique Opens 120MW Gas-Fired Power Station

From BusinessDayLive. Story by Charlotte Mathews.

Gigawatt Mozambique officially opened a new $200 million, 120-megawatt gas-fired power station in the border town of Ressano Garcia Friday.

That will replace about 100 megawatts of power currently being supplied to Mozambique by Eskom’s Arnot power station near Witbank, South Africa.

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 neighbors.

The discovery of gas offshore Tanzania and Northern Mozambique has increased interest in using gas for power in the region.

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 percent of the Matola Gas Company, which sells gas through a pipeline to customers in Maputo.

Read more BusinessDayLive.