Friday, September 20, 2024
Eskom and energy and chemical enterprise, Sasol, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to "collaboratively discover and study potential future liquified natural gas (LNG) requirements".
This is based on a joint statement by the two firms, following the signing ceremony of the MoU on Friday.
"The collaboration aims to determine the potential volumes that South Africa demands to determine a feasible LNG import industry, along with the enabling infrastructure, and may be facilitated by government-to-govt relations in which essential."
"This initiative concentrates on making use of gas for electric power generation to supply critical base load electric power and position gas being a important enabler of re-industrialisation, when also making certain ongoing supply to the market by unlocking world-wide LNG resources.
"Furthermore, the collaboration will contribute to enhancing more info South Africa’s energy mix and enable the country's energy transition and decarbonisation," the joint statement read.
The MoU is expected to "explore sourcing gas within South Africa, the Southern African Development Community region, and other parts of the African continent, in addition to evaluating long-term LNG contracting".
"This will sasol support the gas requirements for Eskom’s planned coal power station repowering and conversion to gas in the long term. The parties will also engage other state entities to enable an LNG value chain in South Africa.
"As part of its revised gas strategy, Sasol is working on enabling the future supply of LNG to South Africa by collaborating with companies such as Eskom, existing and future customers, suppliers, and infrastructure developers.
"The research findings from the first phase of the Sasol-Eskom collaboration will guide the necessary role players and investors required to offer the best prospects for South Africa's energy market, while outlining the challenges associated with the sasol learnerships long-term commitments required for LNG imports," the statement said.