Page 6 - AfrElec Week 31

AfrElec FUELS AfrElec

Kenya reports more delays for lake

shipments of fuel to Uganda

KENYA KENYA Pipeline Co. (KPC) has said it does not however, been impacted by the [coronavirus]
expect to begin deliveries of petroleum products COVID-19 pandemic.” The KPC head did not
to Uganda via port facilities in Kisumu on sched- say exactly when the Ugandan import facility
ule in January 2021. might be completed.
According to Irungu Macharia, the managing He indicated, though, that the Entebbe jetty
director of the state-run fuel pipeline operator, was expected to come online later in 2021.
the barge route across Lake Victoria will not The route will not be able to handle regular
yet be ready to use by the target date because of commercial shipments of fuel until it completes
problems in Uganda. Work on export facilities in “several compliance processes” and gains access
Kisumu has proceeded as planned, he explained, to a barge that can carry cargoes of up to 4.2mn
but operations at import facilities in Entebbe litres across Lake Victoria, he added.
have fallen behind schedule. Kenya and Uganda began working to estab-
“The Kisumu oil jetty has been delayed by the lish an export corridor for petroleum products
delay in completion of complementary facilities across Lake Victoria in 2013. They had initially
in Uganda,” Macharia was quoted as saying by hoped to start using the Kisumu-Entebbe route
the Daily Nation. “The timing of the [Kisumu] in 2019, but work has been delayed repeatedly.
jetty development was pegged on the construc- KPC is already using a specialised ship to
tion of a jetty, vessels and receiving depot in transport rail tankers full of fuel across the lake
Uganda by a private investor [Mhathi Infra, an to destinations in Tanzania and Uganda. The
Indian company active in Uganda]. company conducted a dry-run test of this route
It was estimated that the works would be last year, as well as a wet-run test that involved
completed by November 2020 and operations the transfer of petroleum products from Kisumu
would commence by January 2021. This has, to the Ugandan port of Jinja.™

GAS-FIRED GENERATION

Renergen completes design

work for LNG plant

SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH Africa’s Renergen said last week that it Once the gas liquefaction plant comes
had completed design work on its planned gas online, Renergen will halt production of CNG
liquefaction plant 22 days ahead of schedule. and switch to LNG. The company has already
In a statement, the company described the arranged to work with a unit of France’s Total to
plant design as the fourth major milestone in its promote the use of LNG as a fuel for long-haul
Virginia gas project. Achieving this goal is in line trucking. Total will use its filling stations along
with efforts to launch LNG production in 2021, the Johannesburg-Durban section of the N3
it said. highway to distribute LNG from the first phase
Renergen is building its LNG plant in two of its South African partner’s plant.
stages. The first stage will involve connecting the The second stage of Renergen’s LNG plant is
company’s natural gas wells near Welkom, Vir- due to begin production in 2023. Part of the pro-
ginia and Theunissen in Free State to a new pipe- duction from the second stage will distributed in
line. It will also encompass the construction of Total retail outlets along all South Africa’s major
the gas liquefaction plant and of a helium plant. highways, and the remaining volumes will be
The latter facility will take advantage of the sold to other buyers.
fact that Renergen’s gas fields contain an unu- Renergen recently held South Africa’s first
sually high concentration of helium. Sproule, LNG auctions. It announced the start of the sales
an international energy consulting firm, has on July 20, saying it would accept offers for future
estimated that they may hold as much as 9.74bn production streams of LNG and helium from its
cubic metres of helium, a quantity that exceeds plant until August 28.™
the total proven reserves of North America.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 06•August•2020