Senegal: World Bank funds new HFO plant

The World Bank has approved a loan and partial risk guarantee (PRG) for the Taiba Ndiaye private power project being developed by a subsidiary of Lebanon’s Matelec Group (AE 221/6). The $166m project involves the construction and operation of a greenfield thermal power plant with installed capacity of 96MW and guaranteed capacity of 70MW, to be developed by Tobene Power, a special purpose vehicle incorporated in December 2011. It will be owned 90% by Matelec subsidiary Melec PowerGen Services and 10% by the International Finance Corporation’s IFC InfraVentures. The plant is due on line in mid-2015, to replace existing temporary thermal power.