The US financed specialist natural gas well preparation and stimulation equipment will be used for natural gas development, according to US officials here in Botswana.
It is expected that the equipment will enable Botswana to take advantage of its natural gas reserves and thereby meet a growing need for alternative forms of energy including the generation of electricity and fossil fuel replacement.
US officials said the equipment has been tailor-made in the US and is new to Botswana and Southern Africa region.
As part of the preparatory move, the Kalahari Gas Corporation (KGC) staff has undergone extensive overseas training in the operation of the equipment where it was commissioned and tested prior to shipping.
The presentation of the equipment will be witnessed by the outgoing US Ambassador to Botswana, Joseph Huggins before it is brought into operation at the coal bed methane (CBM) development site.
US officials explain that the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which financed the equipment has been instrumental to CBM developments in Botswana. For example, OPIC provided the $8.5 million (about P30.2 million) investment guaranty to KGC. The guaranty has been used to finance the equipment used for the drilling of CBM wells located approximately 500 meters underground in eastern Botswana.
The equipment comes at a time when, until now, Botswana has had neither equipment nor infrastructure in place for the development of CBM either for extraction or end-use.
It is expected that equipment would in the future make Botswana energy self reliant, while at the same time making the country potentially an energy exporter in the long term. Unlike coal, CBM does not contain particulate pollutants, and its production by-product, water, can be used for irrigation or industrial process water, thereby replacing potable water used for that purpose.
