62 companies want Kenyan coal and LNG

The Kenyan Energy and Petroleum Ministry has received 62 applications from local and international firms interested in the generation of coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.

The companies were responding to the Expression of Interest (EOI) request made by the ministry at the end of September for the development of a 960 MW coal power plant in Lamu, and another request for an LNG combined cycle power plant including a floating storage and regasification unit at Dongo Kundu, Mombasa.

26 companies are interested in the coal power plant, while 36 are interested in the LNG power plant.

The bids were opened at the end of last week at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum headquarters in Nyayo House.

Speaking while receiving the applications, Energy Cabinet Secretary, Davis Chirchir said the evaluation on the EOIs will begin from 29th October and the qualifying 10 firms will then move to the next stage. Proposal evaluation by the ministry will then take 75 days before settling on the two best firms for each project.

The coal and gas fired power plants are projects under the power generation programme launched by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum early last month which aims at putting an additional over 5000 MW into the national grid by 2016.

“You will appreciate why we see success in this programme. We are telling the private investors to do the business plan, we agree on the cost of power and we later buy all the power when the projects are complete,” Chirchir commented.

The coal plant construction will take 30 months while the LNG plant will take 24 months to be completed.

Edited from various sources by Katie Woodward

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/28102013/companies_compete_for_kenyan_coal_and_lng_191/