Sunbird Energy gets ready to target natural gas in Southern Africa, admitted to ASX

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 by John Phillips

Sunbird Energy (ASX: SNY) is gearing up to explore and develop CBM projects (which are a proven source of natural gas) in Southern Africa, and has now been admitted to the ASX after a successful IPO which offered 45 million shares at $0.20 to raise up to $9 million.

Sunbird will hit the ASX boards at 1:00pm EDST on Thursday 19 January, with around 50.2 million shares on issue.

The company is set to hit the ground running fast and has already entered into agreements to acquire a portfolio of CBM projects, which includes a 74% interest in four projects in South Africa and a 100% interest in one project in Botswana.

Importantly Sunbird has already developed a strategic alliance with the Black Economic Empowerment company Umbono, providing a joint venture partner with experience in the region.


Project review

Sunbird’s key projects are located in the prospective coal areas of Kasane in Botswana and Mopane, Springbok Flats, Ermelo and Somkhele in South Africa.

The Ermelo Project is traversed by the Mozambique to Secunda gas pipeline, adjacent to the major hub for the coal and gas to liquids industry and near to the major population and manufacturing centre of Johannesburg.

The Mopane Project in South Africa is located in the Limpopo Province and is characterised by the extensive coal deposits of the Soutpansberg Basin and is traversed by major electricity transmission lines that form part of the Southern African Power Pool.

The Kasane Project in Botswana is located in the north‐east corner of Botswana within the Kalahari Karoo Basin.

Courtesy of http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au

Ethiopia’s ‘grand dam’ rouses citizens, dismays critics

In a western limit of Ethiopia on a banks of a Blue Nile river, a nation’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi thundered that a nation would overcome all obstacles to finish Africa’s largest hydropower plant.

“No matter how bad we are, in a Ethiopian traditions of resolve, a Ethiopian people will compensate any sacrifice,” he said. “I have no doubt they will, with one voice, say: ‘Build a Dam!’”

The supervision portrays a dam as a 5,900-foot long, 475-foot high guide of swell that will banish a country’s repute for fast and dependency. The $4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will lift a nation out of poverty, a supervision argues, by electrifying a country’s automation and creation Ethiopia a informal power-hub – and all but a dump of a assist Ethiopia is synonymous in a West for.

But critics worry that a country may have taken confidence and aspiration a bit too distant in a proceed it pushed ahead with a largest-ever devise unilaterally and with small pure planning.

Secrecy has hidden a 5,250-megawatt plant, scarcely 20 miles from the Sudanese border. Although a site was identified in 1964, a preference to go ahead with what had been famous as Project X became open reduction than a month before construction began on Apr 2.

Its phenomenon repelled a horde of meddlesome parties.

At a launch in Addis Ababa, a Egyptian embassy’s spokesman was dismayed to learn a fountainhead some-more than twice a distance of Singapore would be sum by a fusillade Cairo had not been consulted on. Over four-fifths of a H2O for a Nile, Egypt’s lifeblood, comes from Ethiopia’s highlands, heading to ancestral tensions over usage.

Also uninformed was a Eastern Africa Power Pool, that was only putting a finishing touches on a informal formation investigate that leans heavily on exported Ethiopian hydropower. “We demeanour brazen to removing some-more information so we can means it into a master plan,” Jasper Oduor, a Executive Secretary, said.

Similarly, a uneven pierce was a blow to a Nile Basin Initiative, that is ostensible to settle mild government of a river, and Norwegian consultants whose ongoing studies on a intensity cascade of Blue Nile dams were rendered archaic by a announcement.

The growth proceed might have had a twin functions of minimizing foreign antithesis to a intrigue while maximizing the impact of a proclamation on Ethiopians – if so, it seems to be working.

Since Meles’ speech, a open has been bombarded with advertisements, posters, reports, and speeches about a dam, as a state sells holds to partially account it. Most of a nationalistic citizenry, who cruise Egypt’s mastery of a Nile an strident injustice, approve of a intrigue – even antithesis politicians.

“We need this apparatus to lift people out of a contemptible misery we have been servile in for centuries,” former member of council Temesgen Zewdie says. “There’s no doubt it’s an thought a Ethiopian people support.”

The renouned means sum with a statute party’s endless change – around 1 in each 17 Ethiopians is a member – has done for a highly-effective fundraising campaign. Often following a common preference during staff meetings, open and private zone workers have bought bonds, holding a sum lifted to 7 billion Ethiopian birr ($408 million) in September, according to Bereket Simon, a longstanding fan of Meles and co-head of a GERD Public Mobilization Council.

Courtesy of http://www.ethiosun.com

Ethiopia-Sudan Transmission Line to Be Completed

Tuesday, 10 January 2012 
  
The Ethiopia-Sudan Transmission Line project will be finalized in the first quarter to 2012 at a cost of 41 million US dollars. The 230KV transmission line is expected to be 296KM long.


It is expected that Ethiopia will sell up to 100 MW of electricity to the Sudanese.


The World Bank financed the project with ENEGROINVEST constructing the transmission line and SUNIR International engaged as a substation contractor. European firms HIFABOY and FITCHER served as project consultants until the end of December 2010 and the Transmission and Engineering Office of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation taking over consulting and supervision as of 2011.


The transmission lines in Ethiopia have three sections: Bahir Dar-Gondar (137.2Km), Gondar-Shehedie (122Km) and Shehedie-Metema (37Km). The final section is to connect with a transmission line in Sudanese city of Gedaref.
The Ethio-Sudan Transmission Line Project is expected to further develop the East African Power Pool which encompasses power interconnection projects between Ethiopia-Kenya, Tanzania-Zambia-Kenya-Uganda and Ethiopia-Sudan-Egypt.


It is to be remembered that leaders from Ethiopia and Djibouti inaugurated the substation linking Djibouti to the Ethiopian power grid on Wednesday. It was described as a milestone in linking the economies of the two countries by Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia.


More than 90% of the project was financed by loans and grants from the African Development Bank (AfDB). The project is thought to be very crucial to Djibouti which generated energy from diesel generators.


The memorandum of understanding for power purchase agreement was signed in April 2008 but it took two years to finalize the 25-year agreement.


Source: Capital

Sudan to be on Ethiopia’s grid

By Elias Gebreselassie
   
Monday, 09 January 2012 10:24


The 296 Km long and 230KV (kilovolts) Ethio-Sudan Transmission Line project, which costs USD 41 million, is set to be commissioned during the first quarter of 2012. 


The project which started in 2008 and has three sections of transmission lines in Ethiopia: Bahir Dar-Gondar (137.2Km), Gondar-Shehedie (122Km) and Shehedie-Metema (37Km), is expected to connect with a transmission line in Sudan Gedaref city.


The project, financed by the World Bank, has an Iranian firm, SUNIR international, as substation contractor, while the transmission line contractor is ENEGROINVEST of Bosnia Herzegovina. The project consultant until December 2010 were HIFABOY of Finland and FITCHER of Germany. The Transmission and Engineering office of Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO) has been undertaking the project consultancy and supervision work since 2011.


The project was supposed to be finalized in 2010 but due to financial sanctions on foreign payments imposed by the US on Iranian banks and other reasons related to the distribution line construction, the project has been delayed, according to sources.


The electricity to be sold to the Sudanese is still under discussion but it is expected to be up to 100 Mega watts (MW). 


The Ethio-Sudan Transmission Line Project is part of Ethiopia’s plan of interconnecting East Africa through renewable and clean electric power and it’s also one of the projects for the development of East African Power Pool (EAPP).


This is not the first time such a transmission line is laid. On October 5, 2011 the 283 Km, 230 KV Ethio-Djibouti transmission line stretching from the eastern Ethiopian commercial city of Dire Dawa to Djibouti, began.


The governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti signed an agreement in November 2002 to implement the power interconnection project and subsequently the African Development Fund (AfDB) approved loans from a multinational group in 2004 amounting to USD 30.4 million for Ethiopia and 25.6 million for Djibouti. 


The transmission line contractor for the entire project is Indian firm Kalpatatru Power Transmission Limited (KPTL) while the substation contractor for both countries is Siemens S.P.A.   


The project, on average exports, 35 MW of electricity to Djibouti, from 11:00 p.m to 7 a.m local time. Ethiopia earns USD 1.3 to 1.5 million per month from the export.  The project also benefits 12 Ethiopian border towns with nearly 10,000 customers. 


Djibouti depends mainly on imported petroleum fuel for its power.  The unit cost of power production in Djibouti on average is four to five times higher than Ethiopia which predominantly depends on hydro electricity power. 


The Ethio-Kenya power grid is also another project that is in the pipeline, with Ethiopia expected to export 400 MWs of Energy when the project is finalized.


Ethiopia is endowed with an aggregate potential capacity of 60,000 MW of which 45,000 MW is from Hydro electricity, above 10,000 MW is from wind and 5,000 MW from Geothermal. This has enabled Ethiopia to be a center for interconnecting East Africa through renewable and clean electric power systems.


This has lead to the establishment of EAPP (East African Power Pool) which includes east Africa power corridor interconnection projects; those being the Ethiopia-Kenya line, the Ethiopia-Sudan-Egypt and the Tanzania-Zambia-Kenya-Uganda line.   


Courtesy of  http://www.capitalethiopia.com  

EAC power master plan meeting this month

BY LUSEKELO PHILEMON

4th January 2012

Ministers responsible for energy in the East African Community bloc are expected to meet by the end of this month to discuss a regional power master plan as part of implementation of some of the directives issued by the heads of state summit held in Bujumbura, Burundi, towards the end of last year.

During the well-attended summit, the heads of state directed the EAC secretariat to hold a meeting for addressing power shortages in the region.

According to the arrangements, the meeting is set to bring together high-ranking officials from the regional regulatory authorities and private sector power producers.

The heads of state, in their communiqué, expressed concerns over the unprecedented power supply in the region, which has been there for almost a decade.

It is anticipated that the ministers will discuss regional priorities in terms of power generation and transmission in line with the EAC power master plan and agree on fundraising initiatives.

The gathering is also expected to develop a framework that will enable regional governments and the private sector to invest in energy generation projects.

The power shortages in 2011 plunged the East African region into darkness, slowing business growth and the regional economy. Power blues show one of East Africa’s perennial problems: the region has never had enough power in the first place - in Kenya, for example, only 48 per cent of urban and 4 per cent rural households are connected to the national grid.

A slight drop in water levels of hydropower dams leads to serious power shortages.

In Tanzania, a 12-hour power cut schedule began in June, when a fall in water levels in Mtera dam in Iringa region forced the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) to resort to power rationing. Industrial production dropped considerably and some industries suspended their production.

The EAC council of ministers had directed the secretariat to fast-track the establishment of the EAC power pool by June 2012 to enable power sharing within the region.

The EAC earmarked several priority projects that were critical for ensuring regional interconnectivity and enhancing power generation. For example, Singida-Arusha-Nairobi 400KV interconnection is expected to be completed by 2014.

EAC secretary general Dr Richard Sezibera said a feasibility study and preparation of tender documents for a 400KV-transmission line through Singida, Arusha and Nairobi would cost USD 3 million.

The Bujagali 250MW project is under construction and the project is expected to be commissioned in the course of this year. The cost of the project is USD 116 million.

The 220KV transmission line between Uganda and Rwanda funded by AfDB will cost USD 57 million, according to the EAC boss.

A 220KV-transmission line between Rwanda and Burundi will cost USD 20 million and is expected to be completed by 2014.

The Rusumo-Nyakanazi 220KV, Rusumo-Kigali 220kKV interconnection and Rusumo-Bujumbura 220KV interconnection will be completed by 2015.

The 2,100MW Stienglers Gorge hydro-power project is expected to materialise in 2017, while Kiwira Coal Plant in Tanzania with a capacity to generate 200MW will become operational in 2014.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

China completes cross-border power transmission project with Russia

BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the country's largest power supplier, said 
Sunday it has put to trial operation a cross-border electricity transmission project in northeastern Heilongjiang 
province to supply Chinese with Russia's electric power exports.

The electric power SGCC purchased from Russia began reaching Chinese customers late Saturday night after the 
completion of the direct-current back-to-back networking substation, or called "the trans-Amur project" by Russians, SGCC said in a statement on its website.

The trial operation will last 168 hours, SGCC said in the statement.

With a transmission capacity of 750 mega-watts, the electricity transmission project is China's biggest cross-border power line, according to SGCC.

"The implementation of the project will gain experience for the expansion of Sino-Russian energy cooperation and help promote the economic development for both countries," SGCC said.

The project is also part of the Sino-Russian energy and trade cooperation.

Russian Deputy Energy Minister Andrei Shishkin said in June 2011 that the transmission project would increase Russia's power supply to five or six billion kilowatt hours of electricity to China and Russia intended to increase its electricity supply to China in the coming years.

Russian companies plan export 60 billion kwh of electricity to China by 2020. Power plants will be built along its border with China to reduce power transmission losses and reduce transportation costs.

Also on Sunday, an oil pipeline linking Russia's far east and northeast China witnessed its one year anniversary of operation, as operators announced an accumulated 15 million tonnes of oil had been transported into China in 2011.


Courtesy of www.shanghaidaily.com

Talks on EAC power master plan this month

By ADAM IHUCHA, Special Correspondent   

Energy ministers across East Africa are set to meet by end January to discuss a regional master plan, as they seek to end the bloc’s crippling power shortages. 

The East Africa Community Secretariat is finalising details of the meeting which  is expected to attract executives from regulatory authorities and private sector power producers.

They will discuss regional priorities in terms of power generation and transmission in line with the EAC power master plan, and agree on fund-raising initiatives.

The gathering is also expected to develop a framework that will enable regional governments and the private sector to invest in energy generation projects.

The region is battling power shortages which in 2011 plunged the bloc into darkness, slowing business growth and hurting households. The power cuts signalled one of East Africa’s’ perennial problems: The bloc has never had enough power in the first place — in Kenya, for example, only 48 per cent of urban and 4 per cent rural households are connected to the national grid.

A slight drop in water levels of hydropower dams leads to serious energy shortages.

In Tanzania, 12-hour power cuts began in June, when a drop in water levels in Mtera dam in Iringa region forced Tanzania Electric Supply Company to resort to load shedding. Industries reported shrinking their work day from two to just a single shift, and some suspending production.

It is understood, the EAC council of ministers had directed the secretariat to fasttrack the establishment of the EAC power pool by June 2012, to enable power sharing within the region.

 The EAC earmarked several priority projects that are critical for ensuring regional interconnectivity and for enhancing power generation. For example, Singida-Arusha-Nairobi 400 KV interconnector is expected to be complete by 2014. 

The EAC Secretary General Dr Richard Sezibera, says the feasibility study and preparation of tender documents for a 400kv transmission line through Singida, Arusha and Nairobi will cost $3 million.

Bujagali 250MW project is under construction and the project is expected to be commissioned in the course of this year. The cost of the project is $116 million.

The 220kV transmission line between Uganda and Rwanda funded by AfDB will cost $57 million, according to the EAC boss.

A 220kV transmission line between Rwanda and Burundi will cost $20 millionand is expected to be completed by 2014.

The Rusumo-Nyakanazi 220kv, Rusumo-Kigali 220kv interconnector and Rusumo-Bujumbura 220kv interconnector should be complete by 2015.

The 2,100MW Stienglers Gorge hydro-power project is expected to materialise in 2017, while Kiwira Coal Plant in Tanzania with a capacity to generate 200MW will become operational in 2014.

Rwanda peak power production is projected to generate 400MW by 2013, while Burundi will commence a peat power plant with 200MW capacity by 2015.

Ayago hydropower plant with a capacity to generate 600MW by 2018 and Rusumo Hydropower plant will generate 90MW by 2016. 

Courtesy of The East African