Entered into a 25-year concession and power purchase agreement to sell electricity to Electrogaz
ContourGlobal has announced that its subsidiary ContourGlobal Kivuwatt has signed an agreement with the Republic of Rwanda to develop an integrated gas extraction and power generation facility which will provide 100MW of natural gas fired power to Rwanda and the East African region.
ContourGlobal’s $325m Kivuwatt project will extract methane from the depths of Lake Kivu, a deep water lake located on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lake Kivu possesses a distinctive source of energy, methane gas held in solution deep within the lake water. This gas can be harvested for power generation.
ContourGlobal will develop, construct and operate a platform based gas extraction system that will be moored off the Rwandan coast and will extract methane gas from a depth of 350m. The gas will be processed and transported by pipeline to ContourGlobal’s power plant being developed in Kibuye, Rwanda.
The power plant will have more than double the amount of power currently generated inside the country. In addition, electricity generated by the project also will be available to serve the surrounding East African countries of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
ContourGlobal has been designing and developing the project for two years and has conducted extensive seabed surveys and methane gas sampling in the lower depths of the lake. The project will be constructed in two phases with the first phase of 25MW becoming operational in 2010 and the second phase of 75MW going into operation in 2012.
The power generation component of the project will be powered by Wartsila natural gas burning engines. ContourGlobal Kivuwatt has entered into a 25-year concession and power purchase agreement under which it will sell electricity generated by the power plant to the Rwandan electric distribution company, Electrogaz.