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Johannesburg - Anglo American has appointed Mott MacDonald, a top British infrastructure company, to conduct a viability study for one of its own power stations for Anglo in Mpumalanga.
Anglo has about 60m tonnes of waste coal dumps at three of its mines near Witbank: Greenside, Kleinkopje and Landau. This would be enough to feed a 1 200MW power station for 40 years.
Mott MacDonald's commission is to investigate the viability of a 300MW modular power station, which could be enlarged at a later stage.
Four possible sites around these mines, collectively known as SA Coal Estates, are under consideration for the construction of a power station.
Electricity generated in this way would be fed into Eskom's network for a fee. Anglo would then have a preferential right to draw an amount of electricity, equal to what it has fed into the network, for its projects.
Mott, which has about 1 000 employees in Africa working on various projects on the continent, has involved experienced South African electrical engineering firm Merz McLellan in the Anglo project.
The two companies entered into partnership last year.
Merz CEO Richard Franz told Sake24 on Wednesday that his company had been contracted to do a viability study for the Anglo power station.
Merz will probably also supervise the coming tender process for contractors on the project.
Anglo is clearly reluctant to become directly involved in electricity projects.
However, during Anglo's annual results presentation in February, group CEO Cynthia Carroll candidly told shareholders that it was unable to take investment decisions on new projects in South Africa before it had certainty on electricity supply.
On Wednesday Godfrey Gomwe, executive director for Anglo in South Africa, said the viability study was still at an early stage, and that it was part of an overhead investigation by the group to see what Anglo could do to improve its electricity situation in South Africa.
He pointed out that Anglo was not a natural investor in assets generating electricity.
The company already uses about 900MW of power and expects it will need 1 000 MW in the years ahead to meet expansion plans for its South African projects.
Early in February, during the annual Mining Indaba in Cape Town, Carroll told Sake24 the group would consider involvement in Eskom's two base-load power stations, Medupi and Kusile, but not on a large scale.
- Sake24.com
For business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.