- Potential investors biding for the development of the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project and transmission power lines, in the central province of Tete, praise Mozambican authorities and believe that the tender to hire a strategic partner, currently underway, is being carried in a transparent manner.
On Wednesday bidders were invited to visit the site where Mozambique is planning to build the second-largest hydroelectric in the country to check on the ground environmental and physical conditions of the region. The 5-billion US dollars project is expected to produce energy to feed both domestic market and the southern African region.
Ian Potgieter, representative of the Globeleq and Scatec consortium, said that transparency was encouraging potential shareholders to bid on the project, and thus he believes that his company will put forward the best offer.
“We checked all the conditions on the ground and we saw that the project has legs to walk. In fact, we were able to carry out a quick study to check the quality of the rocks, among other technical evaluation,” Potgieter said.
According to the daily paper “Notícias”, another important issue mentioned by potential bidders is the extension of the deadline for the submission of tender documents.
Marie de Montmarin, from Electricité de France (EDF) says that conditions are in place and that Mphanda Nkuwa project will start within the time frame scheduled for the project.
During the visit, technical teams accompanied potential investors to the site where the dam will be built to collect samples and carry out further technical studies.
The visit aimed to assess conditions on the ground to build the country’s second largest hydroelectric on the Zambezi River, downstream Cahora Bassa dam (HCB), in the central province of Tete.
The Mozambican government is represented in the Mphanda Nkuwa project by the publicly owned companies Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa and Electricidade de Moçambique.
Construction of the dam, with capacity to generate 1,500 MW of power, will take seven years. Besides the dam, the project includes a transmission power line with a length of over 1,500 kilometres.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: AIM
