Last Friday, March 10, the deadline for submitting the technical, economic and financial development proposals of the companies competing to be the strategic partner of the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project, which form the basis of their official candidacy and which will join Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) and Hidroeléctrica de Cahora (HCB), closed. Two international consortia made up of seven companies are bidding for the Mphanda Nkuwa project:

ETC Holdings, ZESCO Limited, CECOT (Subsidiary of Mota-Engil) and PetroSA (Subsidiary of Central Energy Fund, South Africa);

Electricité de France (EDF), TotalEnergies and Sumitomo Corporation.

The submission of these proposals is the culmination of the international public tender where the qualification phase was launched in June 2022 for the companies pre-qualified by the Mozambican government, through the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydroelectric Project Implementation Office (GMNK), with a view to selecting the strategic partner for the financing, construction and operation of this power generation project.

The next stage will consist of the evaluation of the proposals, in accordance with the Public-Private Partnership Law, by an Evaluation Committee chaired by the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy and made up of EDM, HCB, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Land and Environment, the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security and the Bank of Mozambique.

The strategic investor will be selected on the basis of compliance with current Mozambican legislation, technical capacity, financial strength and international experience in developing hydroelectric projects. In addition to these requirements, the bids will be accompanied by a financial guarantee of USD 10 million.

The strategic partner will be responsible for investing between 500 and 700 million USD, corresponding to its share of the total investment, estimated at 4.5 billion USD, including the high-voltage power transmission line from Tete to Maputo.

With an estimated cost of 4.5 billion USD, the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project includes the development of a run-of-river dam, located 61 km downstream from Cahora Bassa, on the Zambezi River in Tete province. A hydroelectric plant with an installed power generation capacity of up to 1,500 megawatts and a 1,300-kilometer high-voltage power transmission line from Tete to Maputo. (Letter)