Shumba Energy is moving its corporate head quarters to Botswana, relocating from Mauritius in a move that will see the company list on Botswana Stock Exchange domestic main board.
Shumba has been domicile in Mauritius and listed on BSE ‘s Foreign Venture Board. On Thursday the company said its asset base has grown substantially and has advanced its projects closer to being ready for production.
Alan M. Clegg, Co-Founder and Chairman of Shumba Energy announced inthe statement that although the company has raised a reasonable amount of capital on the Foreign Venture Board, the move to the Domestic Main Board will allow the company to raise the capital required to get assets in production and also attract a larger number of investors.
Clegg says reorganization will also allow Shumba Energy (Botswana), that owns the operational and resource assets of the Group, to achieve significant savings in overhead costs and administrative efficiencies through reduced overhead costs in maintaining the Mauritius domiciled corporate entities and the compliance and reporting requirements associated with this legacy corporate structure that is no longer providing value to Shareholders.
These savings according to the statement are estimated to be USD500 000( over P5 million) per annum which are considerable and important particularly in this period with the impact of COVID-19 on the business.
The Company says it will now throw its weight behind renewable and alternative energy “While the Directors believe that fossil fueled projects will continue to be necessary for a transitional period of some decades to support Africa’s rapidly increasing base-load energy requirements, however environmentally sustainable generation will continue to develop at significantly greater rates and is expected to become one of the main sources of energy as the emergence of effective storage and release solutions become mainstream.” Shumba said in a statement.
The Company has been developing renewable energy opportunities for several years to incorporate into the longer-term growth plans of the business, and as standalone projects, being reflected now with the rapid advancement of the Tati Solar Project underscoring our belief that it is time to concentrate immediate future efforts on green energy.
Shumba Energy wholly owns the world class 100 MW solar project near the city of Francistown and is currently in the late stage of developing Phase 1, a 50 MW Solar farm on a project site of 300 hectares.
The Project is part of a two-phase program to develop the full 100 MW solar capacity of the site as a key strategic initiative in the region.
The Tati Solar Project was recently issued an Environmental Authorisation and awarded a Generation and Construction License by Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority.
