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Botswana again makes $4bn CTL pitch
BOTSWANA
BOTSWANA is to fast-track its ambitious $4bn coal-to-liquid (CTL) tender in a bid to monet- ise the country’s extensive coal reserves and to reduce emissions.
Speaking at the Mining Imbada in Cape Town on February 4, Botswana Mineral Resources Minister Lefoko Maxwell Moagi said he hoped the project would move forward. “It (the CTL plant) is still in its infancy stage, but we believe now it will be accelerated,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
The government aims to have the plant on stream by 2025 in a bid to boost energy security. State-owned firm Botswana Oil (BOL) origi- nally issued a tender in 2017 to seek investors. It launched the original tender for the CTL pro- ject in 2017. At the time, 11 potential bidders expressed interest
Moagi said that Botswana’s coal reserves, which he described as “God’s gift,” amounted to 212bn tonnes. This compared with the country’s demand for petroleum products of 1.2bn litres per year, all of which is imported, mostly from South Africa.
The government is looking to convert coal to liquids, which involves producing synthetic diesel, gasoline and other fuels, and to push for- ward a 100-MW pilot coal-bed methane (CBM) project. “We believe coal has also got a benefi- cial way of being exploited without adding to the carbon footprint. We can convert it in coal-to- liquids, we can convert it to gas, we can do a lot of things with coal and these are the things we will be exploiting fully,” Moagi said.
Investment
Technology and funding are key issues for Bot- swana as it attempts to exploit its coal reserves.
Moagi said that some banks, which he did
not name, had shown interest in the projects. He also stated that Chinese firms remained poten- tial financiers.
The country’s efforts to attract investment contrast sharply with the current pushback by banks and investors against coal. BlackRock’s recent decision to regard climate risk as an investment risk, reduce its exposure to coal and to lobby company boards to commit to climate change targets is now being followed by more and more investment houses and banks.
In terms of technology, Sasol in neighbour- ing South Africa is a leading exponent of CTL technology. Moagi said that his government had held preliminary discussions with Sasol, whose Secunda refinery currently supplies South Africa with millions of litres of synthetic fuel each year.
The project is Botswana’s second proposed CTL venture. In 2019, Kibo Energy and Shumba Energy formed a joint venture with China’s Wison Group and Power China International to build a separate CTL plant at a cost of $1.5- 2bn. This would produce 20,000 barrels of diesel and 5,000 barrels of gasoline per day for export.
The facility would use coal from Shumba’s Mabesekwa coal project, which has 1bn tonnes of reserves, and where there are plans to develop a 300-MW coal power plant to supply the CTL production plant and a separate 300-MW coal- fired IPP.
Shumba is also looking for funding and has courted Chinese investors.
CBM projects
Meanwhile, Moagi told the Mining Imbada that
his government also expected to finalise power purchase agreements (PPAs) this year for a 100-
MW pilot CBM-fired power plant. 
Lefoko Maxwell Moagi, minister of mineral resources, green technology and energy security (Photo: The Patriot)
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