Page 11 - AfrElec Week 47

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NEWS IN BRIEF
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NUCLEAR
South Africa to create extra space for nuclear waste
Radioactive waste storage facilities at South Africa’s nuclear power station Koeberg will fill up next year, the power utility Eskom said Tuesday, adding it has begun creating extra space.
South Africa is the only country on the continent with a civilian nuclear industry, and its two reactors have been in service for more than 30 years.
The Koeberg nuclear power plant,
located outside Cape Town, produces 1,860 megawatts contributing about four percent of the national power output.
Eskom in a statement that its “spent fuel pools are essentially full in 2020 and for this reason a project was initiated to create additional space.”
It said it would start to transfer “some of the used fuel” to dry storage casks.
The casks have already been procured and “are currently on site” and Eskom said it was “in the process of preparing to transfer used fuel from the... pools into these casks.”
Eskom said it opted for the dry storage solution as it is widely used in the nuclear industry across the world.
“Koeberg is the only nuclear power plant in Africa, and hence the option of a centralised wet storage repository is also not financially viable, nor is it technically viable to increase the size and storage capacity of the Koeberg
spent fuel pools,” it said.
Koeberg was originally set to be
mothballed in 2024, four decades after its inception, but it is being upgraded and it is now expected to operate until 2044.
COAL
ResGen delays finding decision for Boikarabelo
Resource Generation, known as ResGen, will delay a funding decision for the Boikarabelo Coal Project in South Africa until March 2020.
ResGen said on its websites that talks on a ZAR4.2bn ($285m) loan three lenders would continue.
Since 2017, ResGen has been in negotiations with various lenders to land funding for Boikarabela. In June 2019, the company was offered ZAR4.2bn ($285m) in a funding package from the syndicate of three lenders.
Since then, ResGen has been working to come to common terms regarding separate credit approvals and formulating a contract regarding the funding.
“Whilst these negotiations remain incomplete, the company is hopeful of being able to provide shareholders with a further update within the coming week,” Chairman Lulamile Xate said.
He said the process of obtaining funding in
the current environment is a difficult task. “The fact that we are still in ongoing
negotiations with the three proposed lenders should be viewed as very encouraging,” he said.
The Boikarabelo mine is found in South Africa’s prosperous Waterberg region, which currently accounts for 40% of South Africa’s known coal resources.
Vale to close Mozambique
coal operations for 3
months
Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, plans to place its Mozambique coal operations on maintenance for three months, Bloomberg reported, essentially closing the tap on about one-third of the southeast African country’s export earnings.
The move could have severe implications for the country’s balance of payments and currency, as coal is by far its biggest source of export earnings.
Mozambique exported $1.7bn worth of the fuel used in power stations and steel plants last year, with Vale operations in the centre of the country accounting for almost all of that.
The company completed a review of its Mozambique coal mines and decided to shift the focus to producing more metallurgical coal -- used to produce steel -- and less of the lower-value product that power stations burn.
Under the new plan, the assets will produce at a rate of 15mn tonnes per year by the end
of 2020, up from less than 12mn tonnes in 2018, but still well short of Vale’s target to export 22mn tonnes from the mines in central Mozambique.
RENEWABLES
EDF Renewables to take
equity position in Egypt’s
KarmSolar
EDF Renewables and Egypt-based developer KarmSolar have entered into a strategic partnership targeting commercial solar opportunities in the North African country.
As part of the partnership EDF Renewables will inject capital to take a strategic equity stake in KarmSolar, through a reserved capital increase.
The investment will allow KarmSolar to
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