BIG BUILDING ON THE CONGO RIVER
BY JOE NOLAN
Panoramic view of Inga Dam site. Photo courtesy of International Rivers.
region of the DRC. However, the miners are clamoring for much more power – and this is in a country where only 11% of the population actually has access to electricity. Before one bit of building on the actual project gets
started, the DRC is faced with the daunting problem of building the fi nancial foundation that will only begin to make Grand Inga a real possibility. According to the Reuters article, the DRC is building a blueprint that involves fi nancing from both public and private sources including the Africa Development Bank, the World Bank, the French Development Agency, the European Investment Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa as possible partners in the venture. Of course, any possible investment team will have to be able to see forward to the big picture of the Grand Inga while also looking past the DRC’s risky investor profi le. Inga III is burdened by a $12 billion price tag, and the entire project may require a staggering $80 billion before its complete. As the Paris announcement shows, the DRC is confi dent in moving forward, but not everyone is so confi dent. James Leigland is a technical adviser on infrastructure development who is decidedly bearish on the DRC even getting a fi nancial package together, let alone completing their unprecedented hydroelectric project. Again, from Reuters: “It almost defi es imagination that this kind of money is going to be available,” says Leigland, noting that numerous and diverse players will “have to come to the party with equity,” from multilaterals, commercial and
national development banks to the government and the project’s developer. “It is hard to imagine how all of this is going to fall
into place,” says Leigland. “T ey’ve started, they’ve made a commitment to proceed on the basis that South Africa will take a huge amount of the power, but getting from here to there it’s just a very long road.” While Leigland’s reactions to the Paris announcement
seem reasonable, a new press release by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) in November put his pessimism in the spotlight. T e group’s board of directors announced that they had approved $68 million dollars to fi nalize preparations for the project. T e package includes a Fragile States Facility grant of US $7.7 million and an African Development Fund grant of US $60.6 million. Of course, securing fi nancing for the project is just the
fi rst hurdle. Now that the DRC is beginning to show signs of defying the skeptical projections of Leigland and others like him, who will get the nod to actually lead the building of the next phase of the singularly ambitious project? Not only will Inga III be the biggest phase of the overall project to date, it will also involve laying miles of electrical lines to actually connect the new supply with the grid in South Africa. Currently there are three separate consortia vying for the slot: China’s T ree Gorges and Sinohydro; Spain’s Eurofi nsa and ACS; and a partnership between Canada’s SNC-Lavalin and the South Korean duo Posco and Daewoo Engineering and Construction.
WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 25
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