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One of the two bidders for the first round of South Africa’s Coal Baseload Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (CBIPPPP), Marubeni, of Japan, expects the evaluation of bids to begin in April, following an initial delay in the Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office receiving the necessary approvals from government to proceed.
Marubeni Middle East and Africa Power is a co-developer of the 600 MW Thabametsi IPP project, situated near Lephalale, in Limpopo, which would be developed to produce power from coal supplied by Exxaro’s greenfield Thabametsi mine.
Engie, formerly GDF Suez, originally led the project development, but a few months ahead of the bid submission date of August 28 the French group’s board decided not to pursue the project.
Holding a 24.5% stake in the development, Marubeni requested, and received, a bid extension to November 2 and subsequently teamed up with Kepco, of Korea, which took up the remaining 24.5% available to foreign equity participants.
The CBIPPPP bid documentation stipulated that domestic companies held at least 51% of the equity and the South African equity partners in Thabametsi included the Public Investment Corporation and various black economic-empowerment firms.
The other bidder for the initial CBIPPPP round, during which government would seek to procure 1 000 MW, was the ACWA Power-led consortium, which aimed to develop the 300 MW Khanyisa discard-coal project, in Mpumalanga – a project initially promoted by Anglo American.
Speaking at a Fossil Fuel Foundation (FFF) event on Thursday Marubeni Middle East and Africa Power VP Yousuf Haffejee said he anticipated that the IPP Office might be in a position to name preferred bidders as early as May.