Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) and the Turkish private company Karpower intend to build a ship-plant (Floating Power Plant) to produce electricity, generated by one of the world's most polluting energy sources, fuel oil. If it becomes a reality, the project could jeopardize human and marine life throughout Maputo province.  

According to the portal ZitamarThe Floating Power Station will have the capacity to produce 415 megawatts of energy and will be anchored in the Port of Maputo/Matola.

This amount of energy represents "almost 50% of all the electricity installed for the 30 million Mozambican citizens", according to a document sent to our newsroom.

"The plan is for the plant to be powered by heavy fuel oil (HFO) for at least three years, switching to liquefied natural gas (LNG) once gas production in Mozambique starts. The project will include the construction of a 4 km transmission line linking the power plant to the Matola substation," writes Zitamar.

The document, which also cites the portal, says that heavy fuel oil is one of the most polluting and dirty sources used to produce electricity, the use of which is banned in Europe. It is the discarded part of crude oil after it has been refined to extract, among other things, gasoline, diesel and kerosene (lamp oil).

"HFO is therefore literally the waste product of the crude oil refining industry and contains all the worst chemical compounds of this process, making HFO a highly dense and viscous, toxic and harmful substance with a totally negative impact on health," the document explains.

In this sense, "such an agreement would force Mozambique, and in particular Maputo/Matola province, to pay an unacceptably high environmental price," it reads.

Among the consequences are air pollution, which can lead to associated cases of cancer and asthma; loss of aquatic life due to the dumping/disposal of hot water; surface and underwater noise pollution; extremely high greenhouse gas emissions; and the possibility of a fuel oil spill, which would be catastrophic for all marine life in Maputo Bay.

However, EDM and Karpower are already running a heavy fuel oil project in Nacala, in Nampula province. It is, according to Zitamar, a 110MW floating power plant, which has been in operation since 2016. Karpower's promises set 2019 as the year to switch from fossil fuels to LNG, "but so far this has not materialized".