Mozambique Builds Power Infrastructure for Resource-Led Development

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Mozambique government is working hard to improve the country's transport, port and power infrastructure as major world players, including India, Brazil and China and neighbor South Africa, maintain a strong interest in the country's mineral and energy resources.

The government is now planning to construct a power transmission line linking the country's central and northern regions, said Director for Energy Pascoal Bacela. The new line will probably link Cala in Sofala province with Nampula and the port of Nacala, the deepest natural port on Africa's Indian Ocean east coast. Another possible route for the line is from Tete though Nampula to Nacala, he said. The project is currently at the pre-feasibility study stage, Bacela told the daily Noticias.

The central-to-north project is an alternative to a failed project that would have linked Mozambique and Malawi. The line would have supplied electrical power to Mozambique and linked Malawi to the Southern African power grid. This would have involved the construction of a 135-kilometer transmission line and the expansion of a substation in Mozambique and a 75-kilometer transmission line and a new substation in Malawi.

Addressing the country's energy future, Bacela said that Mozambique could count on its large hydropower potential and resources such as coal, hydrocarbons and natural gas which made it possible for the country to produce conventional and renewable energy. He said that this background provides Mozambique with better conditions for the existence of an energy sector that could respond in a safe, effective and long-lasting way to the demands of economic and social development.

The government has recently launched the $1.8 billion Central-South (Cesul) power transmission lined project, which will provide the spine of the high-voltage transmission grid.

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