N$250 million for additional diesel plant at Walvis

THE power utility NamPower has awarded an N$250 million tender for an emergency electrical power capacity at Walvis Bay to Barloworld Namibia.

The additional 21,5 megawatt (MW) will be generated after a short construction period of only 12 months, John Kaimu, Manager for Marketing and Corporate Communications at NamPower, announced on Friday. ‘The emergency power station will be located adjacent to the existing Paratus diesel plant at Walvis Bay and will generate 21.5 MW via diesel-powered generator sets,’ Kaimu said in a statement.The emergency power station will be housed in an enclosed building, reducing corrosion impact as well as noise levels. The new facility will require tanks for the storage of heavy fuel, oil and other hydrocarbon fluids. The generated electricity would be fed into the transmission network by connecting it with the existing substation at Walvis Bay.NamPower advertised and issued a public tender towards the end of March this year and tenders were submitted in June. ‘Barloworld Namibia met all the criteria and the tight construction period of 12 months will start this month,’ Kaimu added. Commissioning is due for the beginning of December 2010. Barloworld Namibia has subcontracted Barloworld Power, the southern African dealer for Cat power products and Barloworld Group’s specialist turnkey power solutions provider, to deliver the power station. The new add-on facility for Paratus will be called Anixas, which is apparently regarded as the original indigenous name of the first harbour of Namibia, nowadays called Sandwich Bay, just south of Walvis Bay.’The central coastal areas of Namibia are currently experiencing unprecedented economic growth, as a result of mushrooming mining – particularly uranium – and other economic activities in the Erongo Region, relying on electricity,’ according to Kaimu. The deal with Barloworld was signed in the absence of the media on Thursday.NamPower has also been mulling a coal-fired power station of at least 400 MW for Walvis Bay and several bidders have submitted their proposals, but no decision has been made yet. In a surprise move, Russian gas production giant Gazprom announced in Cape Town last week that it would build a 800 MW gas-fired power station at Walvis Bay. No announcement to that effect has been made by Namibian authorities yet.Gazprom International Chief Boris Ivanov confirmed the plant of US$1,2 billion, nearly N$10 billion, at the African Oil Conference in Cape Town on Thursday.’We will build and will start the project in January (2010) … that will be the first of a gas monetisation strategy that we are trying to implement in Africa in general and in Namibia in particular,’ Reuters news agency quoted Ivanov as saying. So far, no application for a licence has been made to Namibia’s Electricity Control Board (ECN).Ivanov said Gazprom had a written agreement with South African electricity utility Eskom to buy the bulk of the power to be generated at Walvis Bay. ‘We have an understanding on paper with Eskom about a power purchase agreement for the future electricity offtake from this project … Eskom will be buying 500 MW … 300 MW will go to the Namibian Government,’ the news agency quoted Ivanov. The gas is apparently to come from Namibia’s offshore Kudu gas field. This field has not yet been developed despite more than a decade of negotiations.