INGA III Dam, to benefit africa.

Inga 3 feasibility tenders expected this year, says BHP Billiton aluminium president .
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By: Martin Creamer
23rd May 2008

A committee established to study the feasibility of building the 4 000-MW Inga Three hydroelectric project in the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is expected to invite public tenders this year, BHP Billiton president for aluminium Xolani Mkhwanazi tells Mining Weekly. BHP Billiton has signed an agreement with the DRC government to investigate, with the DRC’s national electricity utility Snel, the possibility of setting up an aluminium smelter in the DRC’s promising Bas Congo region, where a conceptual smelter study was completed at the start of 2007. “We think there is a project there,” says Mkhwanazi.
Envisaged is a $3-billion alumi-nium smelter which will use up to 1 600 MW of electricity to produce 800 000 t/y in its first phase.

BHP Billiton has acquired suitable land in Muanda, a DRC town lying on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Congo river, where a promising port site has been identified.

The Inga Three prefeasibility study has been completed and BHP Billiton has agreed to lend the DRC government $10-mil- lion in order to expedite the full Inga. The feasibility study is now under way, pending African Development Bank (ADB) funding.

As part of this agreement, a com- mittee made up of the DRC’s depart- ments of energy, public enterprises, finance, industry and commerce, Snel and BHP Billiton was formed to oversee the feasibility.

The committee, which meets monthly, has since appointed a chair- person, identified a project leader and agreed to terms of reference.

SNC Lavelin’s prefeasbility study is being reviewed and the World Bank and ADB rules will be followed in inviting inter- national tenders.

“We are hoping that international tenders will be invited in the next two months,” Mkhwanazi tells Mining Weekly.

BHP Billiton intends synchronising its aluminium smelter pro-ject with the Inga Three project.

“Absolute synchronisation is important to us so that first power coincides with first metal,” says Mkhwanazi.

If everything goes according to plan, the first aluminium could be produced in the first quarter of 2015, from alumina imported from Australia and South America.
In an entirely separate transaction, BHP Billiton has entered into an agreement with two other entities to build an alumina refinery in Guinea, which could come on stream in 2012.

“We are now leading the finalisation of a full bankable feasibility study and we are optimistic that there is a project there as well,” says Mkhwanazi.

If there is, the refinery proposed will have a capacity process of at least three-million tons of bauxite a year, bringing it close to Worsley’s 3,5-million-ton-a-year capacity in Australia, which is the prime supplier of alumina to BHP Billiton’s energy-constrained aluminium smelters on Southern Africa’s east coast, one at Hillside, in KwaZulu-Natal, and the other at Mozal, in neighbouring Mozam-bique. South Africa’s energy crisis has resulted in BHP Billiton having to close potlines at the Bayside, also in Kwazulu-Natal.

BHP Billiton, with a production of 1,3-million tons a year, is the world’s fourth-largest aluminium producer.

Just the way i like, Every the Biggest.



There is INGA II in front and INGA I in the back.



Inga I up close.




Future INGA III next to Inga I and Inga II

Congo opens bidding for Inga 3 hydro dam investors .

By: Reuters
19th June 2009
Democratic Republic of Congo has opened bidding for partners ready to help finance the long-delayed $7-billion Inga 3 hydroelectric plant, its energy minister said on Friday.

The government has created a new company to manage the project's construction, which is expected to last eight years and has attracted interest from mining giant BHP-Billiton.

The combined potential of Congo's Inga dams, in the relatively peaceful west of the country, has been estimated as high as 100 000 MW. But current output is around 700 MW and projects to revamp the dams have failed to find investment.

Congo opened the bidding process for companies interested in investing in the 4 320 MW Inga 3 plant after hosting talks on the project in Kinshasa this week, United Nations-backed Radio Okapi reported on Friday.

"Today, BHP-Billiton is interested in this production, because it wants to build an aluminium smelter in Bas-Congo (province). This is the first client we have," Energy Minister Laurent Muzangisa Mutalamu told the radio.

BHP-Billiton, the world's largest diversified miner, could contribute up to $35 million in financing, Radio Okapi reported.

Inga 3 is expected to link up with the southern African power grid to help address growing strains on the region's power supply as well as provide electricity to Congo's mining heartland in the country's southeast.

Congo's government is currently focusing on repairs and upgrades for the faltering Inga 1 and 2 hydro projects. It hopes to increase their capacity to 1 700 MW by 2012.

Congo plans one day to bring on line the 40 000 MW Grand Inga project. However, investors have so far been wary of the risk involved and have baulked at its $80-billion price tag.

For those who know about INGAs. Here is a little fact.
There are INGA I, INGA II that Exist, and Now the country is bdding for a new Finacier of INGA III. , GRAND INGA is just way too Ambitious, but not imossible to built, I just don't see anyone/Company who would invest $80 billion
to build GRAND INGA.


But I'm confident in one year we will find a financier of INGA III.

Fury at plan to power EU homes from Congo dam

The Observer, Sunday August 23 2009
Nick Mathiason



Plans to link Europe to what would be the world's biggest hydroelectric dam project in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo have sparked fierce controversy.

The Grand Inga dam, which has received initial support from the World Bank, would cost $80bn (£48bn). At 40,000MW, it has more than twice the generation capacity of the giant Three Gorges dam in China and would be equivalent to the entire generation capacity of South Africa.

Grand Inga will involve transmission cables linking South Africa and countries in west Africa including Nigeria. A cable would also run through the Sahara to Egypt.

But controversially, it is understood that part of the feasibility study for the Grand Inga project would see the scheme extended to supply power to southern Europe, at a time when less than 30% of Africans have access to electricity - a figure that can fall to less than 10% in many countries.

Extending the scheme to Europe is part of a recent trend that includes the ambitious €400bn (£345bn) Desertec plan to take solar power from the Sahara to southern Europe. And last month Nigeria, Niger and Algeria, with the backing of the European Union, signed a $12bn agreement to transport Nigerian gas through a pipeline to Europe.

"Under the guise of bringing power to poor Africans, development banks are looking to put tens of billions of public money into a flight of fantasy that would only benefit huge Western multinationals and quite possibly feed African energy into European households," said Anders Lustgarten of the Bretton Woods Project, which scrutinises the World Bank and IMF.

The scheme on the Congo river won support from World Bank president Robert Zoellick on a tour of the facility two weeks ago. Its progress is being keenly watched by a host of international power companies and infrastructure banks.

World Bank officials concede there is concern that a project that has the potential to bring electricity to 500 million African homes might have some of its power diverted to Europe. But the Grand Inga project may hinge on the capacity to export energy to richer markets to ensure it receives financing from banks. "We need creditworthy anchor customers to subscribe so investment can go ahead," said Vijay Iyer, sector manager of the Africa energy group at the World Bank.

Grand Inga would be the final part of a three-phase project, the first of which is under way. That involves refurbishing a hydroelectric plant dating to 1972 that has fallen into disrepair due to the instability caused by Congo's civil war. The first phase will involve restoring power supply to South Africa and a host of neighbouring countries.

The second 4,300MW phase is to power the Katanga mining region of the DRC, with a substantial amount of electricity distributed via cable to other African nations. FTSE 100 mining giant BHP Billiton is in negotiations about funding a feasibility study with the DRC government.

The more ambitious Grand Inga phase requires a new dam and a reservoir. The African Development Bank and the World Bank are working up plans for the scheme along with the World Energy Council. Plans will take five years to finalise, with construction taking another 10 years at least after that.