London — The South African petrochemical giant Sasol on Tuesday announced that the construction and commissioning of its initial gas facility for its Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) project in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane has been safely completed within cost and on schedule.
Sasol pointed out in its report for the first half of 2023 that this had been achieved despite the impact of tropical cyclone Freddy which hit Inhambane in February. It added that it will begin processing the natural gas once Mozambique's regulator has issued an operating license.
Sasol has been operating in Mozambique since 2004 and operates the Pande and Temane onshore gas fields in Inhambane. It has a gas processing plant at Temane from which gas is transported by pipeline to South Africa. Some of the gas is taken from the pipeline for industrial use in southern Mozambique, including the production of electricity.
Eventually, gas will be used to power the Temane thermal power station (CTT) which, when operational, will produce 450 megawatts of electricity. This will be an increase of 16 per cent in Mozambique's installed electricity generation capacity.
The main purpose of the CTT is to meet domestic demand under the programme for universal access to electricity by 2030. It will also help drive industrialisation and consolidate Mozambique's position as a regional electricity pole.
