The Western Cape Government's bid to secure cleaner forms of energy received a boost due to a R10 million grant from the United States Government through its Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is a key component of a lowest cost energy scenario for the country. This USTDA grant will further develop the opportunity for LNG in the province through a feasibility study on the demand and potential impact of LNG importation at Saldanha Bay. The study will also provide a preferred model for the importation of LNG for gas-to-power electricity generation capacity and for industrial, transportation, commercial, and domestic uses. The grant will be administered through GreenCape who will select a US firm (as required by USTDA) to complete the study.

Minister Winde said: "I would like to commend the USTDA for funding this initiative. We must reduce our reliance on coal and make better decisions for our environment, and our economic future. Natural gas has the potential to play a key role in our plan to grow our alternative energy sources and this study supports the Western Cape's objective to secure a reliable and affordable energy supply. This is also why we are prioritising the growth of our oil and gas sector as part of our Project Khulisa strategy. We are also immensely proud of GreenCape for securing this vital piece of work. Their reputation as South Africa's leading energy advisory and support body is growing from strength to strength."
According to Lida Fitts, USTDA's Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa: "USTDA is pleased to support this project, which will help increase access to affordable, reliable energy in South Africa. At the same time, this project will create opportunities for U.S. businesses in one of South Africa's growing sectors."

Mike Mulcahy, CEO of GreenCape, added: "Natural gas has a critical complementary role to renewable energy for power generation in a lowest cost, low carbon, energy future for South Africa. GreenCape is grateful to USTDA for their support in exploring and unlocking these opportunities."

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Trading house Glencore is to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from Angola LNG over a multi-year period, adding to similar recent deals between the producer and traders including Vitol.
Angola LNG on Wednesday said the deal was another step toward building its sales book with the most important players in the LNG market.
Last month it sold LNG to Vitol over a multi-year period and also entered a sales deal with the trading arm of Germany's RWE.
Until recently, Angola has been selling all of its LNG via competitive tenders in the spot market, partly because a previous plan to ship LNG to the US fell through because of the US shale gas boom.

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posted by Liesl Frankson on September 15, 2017 in Construction, News, Other infrastructure, Transport​
A new open-access liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plant was opened this week at the Port of Saldanha on the West Coast of South Africa.
The 30-year contract for the planning, construction and operation of the terminal was awarded to Sunrise Energy, a partnership between the South African private and public sectors, by Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) in 2013.
Saldanha Port Manager Vernal Jones said the R109 billion investment would create broader LPG access in the Western Cape and aid in increasing the use of environmentally-friendly and affordable LPG in the national energy mix.
“The terminal will boost the capacity of existing LPG distributors as well as enable the entry of new small, medium-sized and microenterprises, who have had restricted access to the market because of supply constraints and lack of access to enabling infrastructure,” he added.
The future of LPG imports and exportsThe facility comprises a 10.9 hectare landside terminal and waterside multi-buoy mooring connected via a three kilometre subsea and over-land pipeline.
Phase 1 of the terminal entails five tanks with 5 500 tonnes of storage, allowing for a monthly capacity of 17 500 tonnes of LPG. Construction of Phase 1 was completed on schedule and a trial shipment was handled at the terminal at the end of May 2017.
Phases 2 and 3 of the project will see modular expansion that will enable the terminal to meet regional LPG supply demands for the next 27 years.
The Sunrise Energy Terminal is poised to become the country’s largest such facility for handling both imports and exports of LPG the ports authority said.
Earlier this month TNPA’s 24-year concession awarded to black-empowered Burgan Cape Terminals saw a new independent fuel storage, distribution and loading facility become fully operational at the Port of Cape Town.

Commission’s Report relating to the market enquiry into the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Sector
Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Energy
05 September 2017

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Mozambique's long-delayed offshore gas project with Italy's Eni could be approved within months, sources close to the deal said, sparking investments with the potential to transform one of the world's poorest countries into a major energy player.
Mozambique made one of the world's biggest gas finds in a decade in 2010 but negotiations with operators Eni and U.S. firm Anadarko have dragged on for years due to disputes over terms and concerns about falling energy prices.
But Eni has in recent weeks struck deals with contractors and Mozambique's government which could help it to make a final investment decision (FID) on Oct. 31, industry sources said.
Eni declined to comment. The company's Mozambique concession is split between two huge gas fields, called Coral and Mamba. Eni has previously said it expects to make FID on Coral this year and Mamba in 2017.
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The government is planning a gas-to-power programme that will contribute 3 126 megawatts of electricity.
The National Treasury last week said the move would lead to R64 billion of investments in port, pipeline, generation and transmission infrastructure in Richards Bay, Coega and Saldanha Bay.
Building on the momentum and success of the renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) programme, the mooted gas programme will see more private capital injected in the electricity sector.
The Treasury said the Department of Energy was developing a gas utililisation plan, which would take a 30-year view of the gas industry from a regulatory, economic and social perspective.
Chris Bredenhann, PwC Africa oil & gas advisory lead, said the gas-to-power programme was aligned with the country’s integrated resource plan and the government’s stated intention to reduce our carbon footprint, increase the share of natural gas in the energy mix and encourage the development of a natural gas industry in South Africa.
Energy mix
“The gas IPP programme is also an important element of our energy mix, as it provides an opportunity to create generation capacity in a very short time frame – it does not require the long lead times and construction periods associated with large-scale generation projects like big coal or nuclear builds,” Bredenhann said.
As the government prepares to launch the gas-to-power programme, comparisons will be made with the successful IPP programme for renewable energy, through which the government procured 6 377MW of electricity from the private sector since the programme’s launch in 2009.
Approximately 2 045MW of the procured electricity capacity is connected to the national electricity system.
“There is significant interest in the gas IPP programme from project developers, both large and small. This was demonstrated by the large number of responses submitted to the Department of Energy on the request for information that was issued mid-2015,” Bredenhann said.
“The gas IPP programme is however more complex than the renewable energy programme, as it is exposed to a number of additional components and risks. These include gas supply, receiving and regassification infrastructure, transmission and distribution infrastructure, supply risk, price risk and foreign exchange risk,” he said.
Such matters would be addressed in a request for qualifications that would be issued during the course of this year, which would provide the procurement framework against which developers would be required to bid, he said.
“The success of the programme will therefore depend on the design of the procurement programme and the evaluation of the bids received,” Bredenhann said. There were several potential gas sources, “but the initial gas will be in the form of imported liquefied natural gas. Domestic shale gas and coal-bed methane are future options that may be explored, as are potential offshore gas developments and piped gas from Mozambique,” he said.

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A joint prefeasibility study into a large-scale gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant, based on gas from the Rovuma basin in Northern Mozambique, has been launched amid growing excitement about theenergy potential that could flow as a result of large-scale gas discoveries in the country.

The study is being conducted by JSE-listed Sasol in conjunction with Mozambique’s national oilcompany, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos and Italian energy group Eni.

Eni is the operator of the block called Area 4 in the deep waters of the Rovuma basin, which is estimated to hold up to 85-trillion cubic feet of gas. Sasol, meanwhile, already has significant gasinvestment in the Southern African country, but is also a GTL world leader, using a technology based on the Fischer–Tropsch process.

The prefeasibility will assess the viability and benefits of a GTL plant in the region, with Sasolhaving already deployed GTL technology in South Africa, Qatar and Nigeria.

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