Tanesco awards Mtwara Power Plant to Symbion-GE
The Tanzania National Electrical Supply Company (Tanesco) signed a $1 billion contract with the US consortium of Symbion Power (Symbion) and the technology company General Electric International (GE) for the team of the Mtwara Power Plant and the expansion of the electrical power national grid in the south of the country.
Together with Mozambique and Kenya, Tanzania is among the countries of the East Coast Africa to join the club of the top 10 largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world.
According to the last discoveries, Tanzania holds 41.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) recoverable reserves of natural gas.
In parallel, 50% of the inhabitants, mostly in the country side, have not yet access to the electricity while the power consumption is growing very fast in the cities causing power shortage and blackouts to the second largest economy in East Africa.
Currently Tanzania is consuming 1400 MW coming from gas-fired power plant for 35% and the rest from hydro-power and local diesel power generators.
With 7 to 8% growth per year, Tanzania needs to invest in substantial power generation projects to close the gap.
With most of the gas fields being explored and developed in the Mnazi Bay offshore southern Tanzania at the border with Mozambique, Tanzania is willing to develop the most industrial regions of Mtwara and Dar es Salaam along the coast upper in the north through a 532 kilometers gas pipeline.
In this context, the US company Symbion is active in Tanzania for many years and provided already diesel power generators sets such as the 55MW Dodoma diesel engine power plant.
Symbion and GE to build Mtwara Power Plant in 2014
For the Mtwara Power Plant project, Tanesco and Symbion signed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) in February 2013 in order to start the design of the plant.
With Tanesco and Symbion, leading the interests in the projects GE joined the Mtwara Power Plant project to provide the team with its technology expertise to facilitate and speed up the execution of the project.
To require $1 billion capital expenditure, the Mtwara Power Plant project will include:
– 400MW gas-fired power plant to be located in Mtwara
– 650 kilometers power line from Mtwara to Songea to extend the existing national grid from Makambako to Songea
GE contribution to the Mtwara Power Plant project will cover engineering, project management, financial structure.
This Mtwara Power Plant is expected to supply a:
– $500 million and 300 million tonnes per year cement plant for the Nigerian Dangote Group
– $360 million urea plant for the UK listed Wentworth Resources company.
After signing this agreement, Tanesco, Symbion and GE are planning to start the construction of the Mtwara Power Plant project in 2014 for commercial operations in 2017.
