OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Saturday
SOUTH Africa and Mozambique signed an agreement on Friday to build a pipeline to bring natural gas to South Africa from fields in southern Mozambique, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin announced.
Construction of the 895km pipeline, at an estimated cost of R4.8bn will start later this year, he told reporters.
It would carry gas from the Pande and Temani fields in Mozambique’s Inhambane province to supplement the coal feedstock of a giant petrochemical complex at Secunda, in South Africa’s northeastern province of Mpumalanga, operated by the Sasol corporation.
The gas would be used there to produce synthetic fuel and chemical feedstocks. The gas would also replace coal as feedstock for Sasol’s chemicals plant in Sasolburg, in northern South Africa. Erwin said the first gas through the pipeline was expected to reach South Africa by 2003.
The pipeline would be a joint venture between the two governments and Sasol, which has no government holding.
The South African government agreed last December to grant Sasol a licence to construct, own and operate the pipeline from the Mozambican border.
“This is an absolutely critical project in our relations with Mozambique. The benefits are quite considerable for Mozambique,” Erwin said at the time.
The South African government was to offer price discounts to industrial customers to encourage them to switch to natural gas, officials said then.
The signing of the treaty came as President Thabo Mbeki held talks in Pretoria with Mozambican President Joachim Chissano.
Erwin’s representative, Edwin Smith, said those talks included special development initiatives, labour and immigration, and plans for a cross-frontier game park among South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Mozambican Finance Minister Louisa Diogo told reporters: “We feel now that we have made very good progress, and that we need to look to other challenges in the central and northern parts of our country.” – AFP
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