The Financial Close of the first Gas-fired power station in Mozambique has opened up a fresh frontier for project finance in Southern Africa

Gigawatt achieved financial close on its 100MW gas-fired power station on May 30 2014. This marked the end of a lengthy development period for the US$210m project that commenced construction shortly after financial close.

The US$40m of equity required for the project was provided by a consortium of Mozambique shareholders, Gigajoule Power (Pty) Ltd, Old Mutual Life Assurance Company (South Africa) Ltd and WBHO Construction (Pty) Ltd.

The shareholding structure shows that strong Mozambique shareholder participation is an important imperative when doing business in Mozambique. Both the debt and equity will benefit from long-term political risk insurance. Mozambique shareholder participation is an important imperative when doing business in Mozambique. Both the debt and equity will benefit from long-term political risk insurance.