By Bob Kernohan

Plans to build a power station costing between R5-billion and R6-billion in Nelson Mandela Bay will be tabled at an energy summit in the metro on Thursday, a leading industrialist revealed last night.

Discussions with the municipality and government departments on the project – plans for which have arisen as the result of the Eskom power crisis – have already taken place, Coega Development Corporation chief executive Pepi Silinga said.

He also said at the annual meeting of the PE Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Percci) that no matter what company developed it, an aluminium smelter would be built at the industrial development zone.

The CDC chief executive was speaking hours after Eskom said that it was changing its policy on providing power to huge users.

“We simply can‘t accommodate large smelters and the like ... to the degree we have in the past,” Eskom spokesman Andrew Etzinger said.

Meanwhile, Rio Tinto international chief executive Tom Albanese indicated in London that the R20-billion Coega smelter was still regarded as a feasible investment.

He forecast that the company‘s production of aluminum would rise 7,6% a year through to 2015 as “projects such as the Coega smelter in South Africa come on line”, the Dow Jones financial service reported.

However, it would appear that the announcements on Eskom and by Rio Tinto – which now owns smelter company Alcan – played no direct role in Silinga‘s statement as he said the CDC was already involved in discussions on an independent power supply.

“If we do not address energy projects for Coega, the plan for the IDZ will not be the same as was originally laid down,” he told the region‘s business elite.

“We are already committed to projects that require 500 megaWatts of electricity more than can be provided,” he said.

“From the point of view of confidence in Coega and in the Eastern Cape, we cannot default on these.”

And he said: “We are not putting our future in the hands of Eskom.”

Also, two projects for providing power at Coega – one a gas turbine system and the other an open-cycle generator – had both “collapsed”, meaning that another alternative had to be sought.

“In discussions with government departments it has been suggested that the CDC must drive a plan for the establishment of a power station in the metro.

“For that reason, and with the involvement of the metro, business, and other parties, an energy summit will be held tomorrow (Thursday) and on Friday to pitch for backing for this plan.”

He said the project would cost “from R5-billion to R6-billion” and companies were already interested in going ahead with it.

“In this way, we believe we can address the problems we are facing (with regard to power).”

Silinga also said that as the aluminium smelter plan had changed first from being negotiated with a French company, then with Alcan and later with Rio Tinto, so the vision for the IDZ was changing.

“Originally, there were no plans for the petro-chemical sector, for bio-fuels or for aqua-culture sectors, so the balance has shifted from a strategic point.

“For instance Absa bank has 90 people training at a call centre at Coega and, because of the success there, are now looking at having 600 people there. A prawn farm can create 4000 jobs, while we are also looking at building a R200-million desalination plant for providing fresh water, bearing in mind the lessons we have learnt from the Eskom situation.”

Silinga said that he was wondering if the terminology for the Coega industrial development zone should be changed to the “Coega economic zone”.

Source: The Herald