The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
DISCOVERY Investments is seeking a potential investor to partner the company to start coal bed methane gas extraction at its 100 000 hectare concession in Lupane District, Matabeleland North Province.
Discovery Investments managing director Mr Thabani Hove said the company was engaged in talks with a potential investor to partner in extracting the resource within its Special Grant situated at Mzola and Dandanda communal areas.
The company was issued with an Environmental Impact Assessment certificate by the Environmental Management Agency late last year to start setting up its infrastructure in preparation to start harnessing the methane gas at its concession. The gas has an estimated lifespan of about 50 years.
“There are investors whom we are talking to and we have even cast our net wide. It’s just that a number of investors are still sceptical about the prospects of investing in the country. We recently sent our technical director to the site just to ascertain if everything was in order before the visit by a potential investor,” Mr Hove said.
The company intends to start extracting the gas using three production wells of which the fumes would be pumped straight from the source into the buyers’ tankers. The gas can be used for multi-purposes such as power generation, production of fertilisers and light oils as well as energy for cooking.
“By March last year we had an investor that had partnered us but Government insisted on having a stake on the project. Of course most investors are not concerned about the ceding of 51 percent shares as per the indigenisation policy but they prefer partnering private players only. The local community is inquisitive on the project’s progress and they are looking forward to benefit especially with regards to employment creation. Premised on these circumstances, the success of the Zimbabwe
Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformati (Zim Asset) will be hampered if there are some hindrances,” said Mr Hove.
Lupane’s Kusile Rural District Council chief executive officer, Mr Christopher Chuma said the delay in the exploitation of the methane gas was denying the community an opportunity to benefit from its resource.
“We were looking forward to the expediting of this project since we have the resource. We wanted to see it being exploited so as to benefit us. We stand to benefit in terms of labour with many locals expected to be employed and in terms of value addition of the gas. The gas can be used to manufacture fertiliser and as such we had already planned to lure the investor to set up a plant in Jotsholo.
“Since gas is a natural resource or mineral as the local authority we stand to benefit through charging unit tax which we will obviously use to improve our service deliveries. As things stand we can only hope that whatever is stalling progress is rectified soon so that we benefit from our resource,” Mr Chuma said.
Late last year Government indicated that Russian energy giant, Gazprom, had expressed an interest in the extraction gas in Lupane.
Methane is a colourless, odourless gas with a wide distribution in nature. It is the principal component of natural gas, a mixture containing about 75 percent methane, 15 percent ethane, and five percent other hydrocarbons, such as propane and butane.
