Eskom and Sasol Have Signed A Gas MoU Agreement
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 organizations, following the signing ceremony of the MoU on Friday.
"The collaboration aims to ascertain the prospective volumes that South Africa calls for to determine a practical LNG import market, combined with the enabling infrastructure, and may be facilitated by govt-to-govt relations the place needed."
"This initiative focuses on working with gas for power generation to offer important base load electricity and position gas to be a crucial enabler of re-industrialisation, while also guaranteeing ongoing supply to the marketplace by unlocking world LNG resources.
"Furthermore, the collaboration will contribute to enhancing 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, sasol bursaries the Southern African Development Community region, and other parts of the African continent, in addition to evaluating long-term LNG contracting".
"This will 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 sasol 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 sasol learnerships associated with the long-term commitments required for LNG imports," the statement said.