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Private equity investor Actis buys into Senegal’s Tobene IPP
SENEGAL
PRIVATE equity investor Actis has bought Sen- egal’s 115-MW Tobene gas-fired power project from local IPP Melec Power Gen (MPG) for an undisclosed sum.
Actis’ Africa-focused power investment vehi- cle Azura Power will now take over the heavy fuel oil (HFO)-powered project with assistance from Africa50, part of US development finance insti- tution (DFI) Power Africa.
Actis and Africa50 now aim to complete the conversion of the power plant to natural gas and eventually invest in MPG’s other power assets. Actis did not reveal the size of the deal.
MPG holds a 20-year build-own-operate (BOO) contract with local utility Senelec. The Tobene project opened in 2016 and was set up with the backing of the IFC.
MPG also runs the 67.5-MW Kounoune HFO-fired power plant, which was opened in 2008 and was Senegal’s first IPP. It was also backed by the IFC and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
“We are delighted to be making this invest- ment in the Tobene Power Plant to help drive our
growth in thermal power plants [TPPs] in Africa. A key part of the investment strategy for Azura is to convert the Tobene plant from HFO to gas, as part of Senegal’s Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), in order to drive down the cost of power as well as improve the environmental impact of the plant,” said Azura Power CEO Alan Muir.
“We have invested over $1bn across Africa in the electricity sector and we are deeply commit- ted to the continent,” said Actis partner Adrian Mucalov.
Azura Power is a financier and operators of IPPs across Africa, with a strong presence in West Africa, where it is the founder and major- ity-owner of Nigeria’s first privately project financed IPP, a 461-MW IPP that is now oper- ating near Benin City in Edo State. Actis has to date raised $15bn of private equity that is now invested in developing markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Its energy business has com- mitted $5bn to 34 energy investments in over 20 countries; this translates to more than 25 GW of generating power which has provided access to over 100mn people across the firm’s markets.
Morocco remains committed to gas pipe
MOROCCO
AMINA Benkhadra, the head of Morocco’s national oil company (NOC), said last week that the Moroccan government remained commit- ted to the construction of the Atlantic pipeline, which will pump natural gas from Nigeria to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaking at the second Nigeria-Morocco Business Forum, Benkhadra said her company, Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM), saw the project as a strategic priority. The Atlantic pipeline has the potential to foster regional integration in West Africa and increase African gas exports to Europe, she said.
The scheme will also have a positive socio-economic impact on the region, she added. It will help Nigeria, Morocco and all of the transit countries involved by creating jobs and encouraging investment, she said. Addition- ally, it will facilitate the creation of a competitive regional electricity market, she commented.
Abuja and Rabat struck an agreement on the Atlantic pipeline project in late 2016, when Morocco’s King Mohammed VI was paying a state visit to the Nigerian capital. At that time, the two sides said that they wanted to build a wide-ranging pipeline network capable of
serving 16 countries. The 5,700-km system would run parallel to Africa’s Atlantic Ocean shore from Nigeria to Morocco and would include links to onshore facilities in Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco, as well as a connection to the European gas grid.
The cost of this project is projected to hit $670bn. Nigerian and Moroccan officials have said that the pipeline network will have to be built in stages over a period of 25 years.
Benkhadra said last week that Morocco and Nigeria expected international oil companies (IOCs) to join the Atlantic pipeline scheme. So far, though, no major investors have committed to participating.
The parties have not said exactly when they hope to begin building the network and have not made a final investment decision (FID) yet. They did complete a feasibility study in January of this year, though.
The Fitch ratings agency has criticised the conclusions of this study, saying that it underes- timated the financial, political and security risks of the project.
Week 46 21•November•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7
