The Projects ¬ Energy
Botswana Stock Exchange listed Tlou Energy this week announced that following the award of the 10MW Generation Licence work is now set to begin for the construction of the transmission line and substations to connect its advanced Coal Bed Methane Lesedi power project to the national electricity grid.
Late last year Tlou announced that it has secured funding for the construction of the transmission line and substations from its largest shareholder (Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund).
The company announced on 30 November 2021 that it has signed a Convertible Note Agreement with the BPOPF and has also agreed terms for an equity investment by the same Fund.
In a statement floated on its website Tlou revealed that the funds were planned to be used to finance construction of transmission line infrastructure to connect the Lesedi Project to the Botswana Power Corporation(BPC) power grid and to fund installation of generation assets and ancillary costs to facilitate power generation and sale of electricity.
The Note has a fixed interest rate of 7.75% p.a. payable every six months. Interest may be capitalised for the first 18 months. This can be converted to ordinary shares on exercise of the conversion option by BPOPF at a 10% discount to the weighted average traded price of the Company’s shares on the highest average volume exchange of the BSE/ASX/AIM over the 90 trading days prior to the maturity date.
Upon conversion of the Note into fully paid ordinary shares, the shares will rank pari passu with the Company’s existing shares. Since the announcement relevant contractors have been updating their tenders to reflect any cost adjustments since their original submissions.
This process is largely complete and following final signatures, the work is set to commence.The Lesedi project is located approximately 100Km from the existing electricity grid. The development will include the erection of wooden poles fitted with an overhead 66kV transmission line. In addition, substations will be installed at Lesedi and close to Serowe.
The Lesedi substation will integrate the generation assets with the transmission line and the Serowe substation will tie in with Botswana Power Corporation’s existing infrastructure.
The transmission line route has been surveyed and full environmental approval is in place. The line will predominantly cross flat, arid terrain with the last ~5 Km being through the outskirts of the Serowe township.
Tlou has engaged the services top electrical engineering contractors for the project with the construction of the overhead lines being Zismo Engineering (Pty) Ltd (“Zismo”) and by OptiPower for the construction of substations.
Zismo is a Botswana-based Electrical Engineering, Contracting, Automation and Refurbishment Company. OptiPower is a division of Murray & Roberts Ltd. Based in South Africa, OptiPower’s core business includes the construction of substations, power lines, and fibre optic networks.
Tlou recently received a 10MW Electricity Generation License from the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA). The license has a term of 15 years and is for the generation of 10MW of power at the Lesedi project for sale to Botswana Power Corporation (BPC).
A series of key milestones have been achieved in the past year allowing the Company to progress into the development phase and towards first revenue.
The Lesedi gas production wells continue to steadily perform. The Lesedi 3P (“L3”) production pod was shut‐in for approximately 18 months during the pandemic and was recently brought back into production following the resumption of full operations.
Since resumption, L3 has already recommenced flowing gas which is a very positive indicator and the Lesedi 4P (“L4”) production pod also continues to flow sustained gas.
Cumulative flow rates are encouraging and we look forward to providing substantive numbers to the market as soon as practicable.
