Honourable Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, South Africa,
His Excellency Gabriel M Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, Equatorial Guinea,
His Excellency Fafa Sanyang, Minister of Energy and Petroleum of Gambia,
His Excellency Mouhamadou Makhtar Cisse, Minister of Petroleum and Energy of Senegal,
His Excellency Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of Somalia and, Fellow delegates
Thank you to Africa Oil & Power for the opportunity to showcase the CEF Group of Companies. It is with honour and great pleasure to be part of this prestigious occasion and to be sharing a stage with the Honourable minister. It would not have come at a better time when the CEF Group is embarking on a campaign to drive investments in the energy value chain geared to drive the South African economy and create much needed job opportunities.
The CEF Group of Companies (CEF), is a state owned company of the Republic of South Africa, an implementation arm of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. The CEF Group of companies represents an energy security of supply value chain comprising exploration and production, coal and gas supply, liquid fuels processing and supply, liquids fuels storage and infrastructure and a renewables division. CEF group of Companies conduct its business through the holding company CEF SOC Ltd. and its subsidiaries, namely African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation, iGAS, Petroleum Agency South Africa, Petroleum Corporation of South Africa and the Strategic Fuel Fund.
This year’s conference theme #MakeEnergyWork resonate very well with CEF Group of companies’ agenda taking into cognisant the global macro-economic factors, energy requirements combined with the Africa’s socio-economic environment.
Making energy work challenges to move beyond “grand strategies” but to focus on innovative approaches to execute. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, in their book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, said the key to proper execution lies in three core areas: people, strategy and operations.” People process the most crucial of the three as people give organization the requisite competitive edge.
Organizations competitive edge enables the entity to responding to changing markets, create strategies and translate those strategies to reality. It is on that base that CEF conduct our business ensuring the pillars of Transformation, Strategic Partnerships, Operational Excellence and Innovation forms the basis of all that we do but whilst ensuring a sustainable environment that subscribes to zero harm, an attractive employee value proposition that grow’s our fit-for-purpose human capital and ensures compliance to the relevant legal framework.
Making Energy works challenges us to seek energy solutions that will ensure energy poverty alleviation and ensuring reliable affordable energy for. Therefore, CEF Group of Companies has both the ensures shareholder and stakeholder value that enables its developmental agenda in a commercial environment.
In keeping with the theme of the conference #Makingenergywork both for the group, to reignite the economy and support SA government in addressing the triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty, the group is accelerating its investment strategy in the following growth areas:
South Sudan: Nile Orange Energy Project (Exploration & production)
Culmination of this relationship resulted in the birth of the Nile Orange Energy Project in South Sudan has been established as a collaboration between the National Oil Companies, Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) and Nilepet.
Expansion of Coal Mining Operations
AEMFC’s growth strategy includes targeting mineral resources assets which become available in the market as a vehicle to achieve the desired growth to support the country’s security of supply for energy and, further, to support the country’s beneficiation strategy.
New Refinery in Richards Bay; partnering with Saudi Aramco in prefeasibility stage that will be completed before end of 2019. We are making partnership strategic pillar a reality through people.
LNG programme in Coega
In our endeavors to government strategic objectives a reality (i.e. execute, execute,) and ensure the Honorable Minister’s budget vote speech is made a reality we commenced with feasibility studies importation of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) with Coega Industrial Development Zone as the hub.
Through this intervention, CEF Group is geared to import LNG to Coega to grow the gas market in South Africa.
Renewables: ACWA Redstone Project
CEF has invested 15% shareholding in the project, which amounts to R600 million. This project is the first of its kind in Africa, with the capability to provide South Africa’s demand for energy when it’s needed most – day and night.
With the lowest delivered electricity price of any CSP project in the country to date, the Redstone project will generate more than 480,000 megawatt-hours per year. This annual output is more than twice that of other technologies per MW of capacity, such as photovoltaics (PV) or direct steam solar thermal.
The Redstone Solar Thermal Power Project will be located in Postmasburg, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province.
In summary, our growth agenda is focused on, amongst others Optimizing, Expanding and Diversifying our mining asset base Stabilizing and Expanding our liquids asset base Expanding our gas asset base Optimizing and Expanding our liquids fuel storage and infrastructure asset base with examples of such being the recent announcements of developing a New Greenfield Refinery within South Africa, development to enable access and production of oil in South Sudan, development to enable the LNG hub in Coega.
In conclusion, whilst we recognize the challenges that lies ahead in security South African energy future, the Group will be engaging with various partners and investors in realizing in the energy value chain both local and beyond our shores.
It my privilege and honour to introduce the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Honourable Minister Gwede Mantashe.
