Turkish company Aksa Enerji Üretim A.Ş. last month commissioned the second 12MW unit of the rehabilitated Ambohimanambola heavy fuel oil (HFO) plant in Madagascar. The company was awarded a contract to rehabilitate and operate the 24MW plant – which is adjacent to a 66MW HFO plant Aksa brought online in July 2017 – in April 2018 and began operating the first 12MW unit on 6 December.
Aksa has a five-year dollar-denominated contract to sell power to national utility Jiro Sy Rano Malagasy (Jirama). The agreement includes maintenance work and provision of spare parts for the plant. Aksa said at the time that the plant’s proximity to its own facility provided logistical and workforce advantages.
Aksa has had considerable success in its entry to the continent over the past two years, as one of a number of Turkish companies looking to diversify away from their domestic market. The company started operations at a 40MW HFO plant in Mali in August 2017 and brought a 280MW HFO plant online at Tema in Ghana in March 2017. The Ghanaian plant was expanded to 370MW in November 2018, providing 332MW guaranteed capacity with capacity fees applied for capacity used above this.
Madagascar has been bolstering its reputation as a promising frontier market in recent years and there is optimism that new President Andry Rajoelina will continue this trend. He has been meeting energy industry executives since his election victory in December and benefited from a public promise by the Africa50 fund at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa earlier this month to invest in power generation in the country. Madagascar is one of Africa50’s shareholders.
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