Tlou Energy raises additional funds for Lesedi project
Pauline Dikuelo | Tuesday April 4, 2023 06:00
When complete, the Lesedi is set to become Botswana’s first project to derive electricity from gas.
The company which is listed on both the Australian and Botswana bourses dded in a filing it had placed 5,714,284 new ordinary shares of no par value at an issue price of P0.30 per share and raised A$200,000 (P1.74 million) .
Tlou Energy’s managing director, Tony Gilby said the issue price represents approximately a 5.4 percent discount to the closing Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) share price on March 24, 2023 of A$0.037 and a 3.8 percent discount to the 15-day volume weighted average price for the company’s shares traded on the ASX of A$0.0363. “The New Shares will, when issued, be credited as fully paid and will rank pari passu in all respects with the Company's existing issued ordinary shares from issue,” he said.
The Lesedi Gas-to-Power Project is estimated to cost P300 million of which the largest pension fund in the country, BPOPF, has already loaned P50 million to fund the construction of phase one of the project. The power project is a two phased natural gas extraction initiative that would seek to allow the nation to be able to exploit the energy sitting in the Lesedi Coalbed Methane (CBM) fields to create greater energy production independence for Botswana.
The first phase of the project involves the drilling of six natural gas wells, the construction of the 100km transmission line to Serowe, the construction of substations, grid connections and an electricity generator to produce two megawatts of electricity. Lesedi is a natural gas extraction initiative that would seek to allow the nation to be able to exploit the energy potential sitting in the Lesedi CBM fields to create greater energy production independence for Botswana. The project is anticipated to ease government’s woes of depending on imported energy as this is the first coal project.