JOHANNESBURG: An Australian energy group that has made significant gas discoveries in Zimbabwe is setting up a pilot project for the country’s first own gas-to-power supply that would potentially extend into electricity-hungry southern Africa.
The project could transform energy security in resource-rich Zimbabwe, which is developing its mining sector and has faced shortages in a power supply reliant on coal and rainfall-dependent hydropower.
A government report published last year, drawing on World Bank data, estimated those shortages cost the economy 6.1 percent of GDP in 2022, driven by both generation inefficiencies and network losses.
Invictus Energy, the only oil and gas company operating in the country, expects to launch a pilot providing power to a gold mine in 12 to 18 months, chief executive Scott Macmillan told AFP in an interview.
The Perth-based company will meanwhile this year drill a new exploration well in the northern Cabora Bassa Basin — where it made major discoveries in 2023 — after securing agreements with the government earlier this year, Macmillan said.
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