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Engineering consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff is building up its southern Africa and mining industry personnel, seeing a substantial business opportunity from coal-to-power and other minerals-related projects in the electricity-starved region. In recent appointments that PB believes will help expand its already substantial sub-Sahara business, Gavin Young has moved from being Johnson Matthey plc’s South Africa managing director to head PB’s expanding Craighall, Johannesburg-based operation, while mining and nuclear specialist Nick Edmunds has come from 17 years with Wardell Armstrong as director of mining. Edmunds’ role, the company said, “will enable PB to marry its power generation business with a growing requirement for mining services.”

Tullow Oil’s problems with the Kinshasa authorities over its acreage on the western side of Lake Albert have failed to deter other companies from seeking blocks there.

Developer CIC Energy Corporation is blaming tough market conditions for delays in its coal-to-power (CTP) scheme, mainly to supply South Africa from a major Botswana coal field, but still sees the Mmamabula Energy Project (MEP’s) first phase starting commercial operations by Q4 2012/Q1 2013.

Sasol, iGas and Compania Mozambicana de Gasoduto are building a gas compression station to facilitate a 20% expansion of natural gas delivery from Mozambique to South Africa by the end of 2009.

Two consortia led by US and French rivals Westinghouse and Areva have submitted bids to Eskom for the first of a series of planned nuclear power plants (AE 131/7, 116/9). Bids for the first 3,000MW-3,500MW plant, dubbed Nuclear 1, were submitted at the end of January

The Hitachi group awarded South African construction and engineering group Murray & Roberts the boiler construction contract for Eskom’s planned Medupi and Bravo coal-fired power plants.

South Africa’s urgent requirement for power supply, shared by many other African economies where sustained growth has added to energy demand, will produce a range of responses – some of them pushing SA’s usually financially conservative leaderships towards private financing solutions.

UK-based developer IPSA Group Plc has signed a memorandum of co-operation with the South African government’s Central Energy Fund (CEF) to supply a power plant for the Coega Industrial Development Zone outside Port Elizabeth. The agreement clears IPSA to proceed with its project for a 1,600MW combined-cycle gas turbine generating facility at Coega,

With capacity constraints causing load-shedding at home and export shortfalls to neighbouring countries, Eskom has expressed disappointment at the tariff increase approved by National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). Eskom said Nersa had approved a price increase of 14.2%, compared to the 18.7% sought by the utility.