Page 16 - AfrOil Week 36

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Those reforms were designed to encourage out- (SNE), still accounted for no less than 94% of
side investors to build and acquire TPPs and the country’s total electricity output.
other generating facilities, such as solar farms Perenco has been active in the DRC since
and hydroelectric power plants (HPPs), in the 2001 and is now the operator of several off-
DRC. shore assets: Emeraude, Likouala, PNGF South,
So far, though, they have had limited success. Yombo and Masseko. It is using the La Noumbi
As of press time, the national power provider, floating production, storage and off-loading
state-owned Société Nationale d’Electricité (FPSO) vessel to develop the latter two fields. ™

Renergen says its LNG auctions

drew more interest than expected

SOUTH AFRICA RENERGEN said last week that its upcom- right to buy for future production streams of
ing LNG auctions, the first of their kind in LNG and helium from Renergen’s LNG plant.
South Africa, had attracted more interest than The facility is currently under construction and
anticipated. due to begin commercial operations in 2021.
Stefano Marani, the company’s CEO, told the The South African company is building its
press last week that Renergen had not expected LNG plant in two stages. In the first stage, it
so many companies to register for the auctions. will connect its natural gas wells near Welkom,
“We expected some interest but certainly not the Virginia and Theunissen in Free State to a new
level received, with significantly more compa- pipeline and also build the gas liquefaction plant
nies involved in the auction process than we had and a helium plant.
forecasted,” he said. The latter facility will process helium from
This high level of interest shows that there Renergen’s fields, which contain unusually high
is room on the domestic market for new types volumes of the noble gas. Sproule, an interna-
of fuel, he added. “Many companies in South tional energy consulting firm, estimates that
Africa have their own procurement depart- these sites may contain as much as 9.74bn cubic
ments dealing in energy, and an auction such metres of helium, or more than the total proven
as this would never feature in their operational reserves of North America.
processes. However, we were pleasantly sur- Once the gas liquefaction plant comes online,
prised to be proved wrong,” he commented. the company will halt production of CNG and
Marani did not name any of the interested switch to LNG. It has already arranged to work
parties. He was speaking after Renergen closed with a unit of France’s Total to sell its LNG as
registrations for the auction on August 28. a fuel for long-haul trucking. Total will use its
The next step for registered bidders is to sign filling stations along the Johannesburg-Durban
non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), the CEO section of the N3 highway to distribute LNG
said. After meeting this requirement, partici- from the first phase of Renergen’s plant.
pants will have until the end of October to final- The second stage of the LNG plant will then
ise and submit their bids, he stated. begin production in 2023. Part of the produc-
“We now look forward to completing the tion from the second stage will be distributed
information-sharing process and assessing all by Total’s retail outlets along all of South Africa’s
bids received,” Marani said. major highways, and the remaining volumes
The winners of the auctions will have the will be sold to other buyers. ™

The Tetra4 plant handles helium from Renergen’s gas deposits (Photo: EIMS)

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