But in the event that negotiations do not succeed, CEO Stefan Schwarzfischer says they have something to fall back onto as two other companies have offered to buy the troubled Chinese built coal-fired power station. “CMEC have been in Botswana for the last month and they completed the due diligence last week. We expect to receive the offer from them on February 8, after which we will respond in ten days’ time. We expect negotiations to last until June 2017, and if we agree the deal should be finalised by January 2018. But if the talks fail, we then go back to the two other firms that have expressed interest to buy the plant,” he told the media in Gaborone this week.
Schwarzfischer declined to speculate on how much the plant could cost but said CMEC would be the first external entity to put a value on the plant that was built for $970 million in 2014, but has incurred billions of pula in extra costs in remedial works. A different Chinese company, China National Electric Equipment Corporation (CNEEC), built the plant but it has often broken down since commissioning in 2012, leading to a reliance on diesel generators and imports from South Africa.
