Eskom is considering buying electricity from a Karpowership plant to be located offshore from Mozambique after declining to sign agreements to procure power from facilities the Turkish company planned to moor off the South African coast.

The utility is in talks with Electricidade de Moçambique for buying the output from a 415MW Karpowership power station, which will be mounted on a ship stationed in Maputo Bay and burn low-sulphur oil.

“Discussions with Eskom, as one of the potential off-takers, are ongoing and an offer has been submitted for their internal review,” the state-owned Mozambican company said in a response to queries. “The final off-taker is expected to be the export market due to the exacerbation of the power deficit that we are witnessing in some countries in the region, including South Africa.”

The government has said it wants to buy 1GW of electricity from neighbouring states, many of which are suffering outages of their own.

“Eskom will be undertaking a fair and transparent process to acquire” that power, it said in a response to queries, without addressing whether it is wants to tap output from the Karpowership facility. “A procurement strategy is being developed,” it said, adding that it has received unsolicited offers.

The Maputo plant, which adds to a smaller facility operated by the Turkish company off Nacala in northern Mozambique, is expected to get environmental approval in June and start operating in October, EDM said. Karpowership confirmed the October target.

An off-take accord could attract opposition from environmentalists, who have delayed the company’s South African plans for gas-fired plants on ships by filing objections over the potential impact on marine life.

Read: Karpowership still keen to invest in South Africa despite setbacks

Karpowership in 2021 won a tender to supply 1.2GW of power to South Africa. In addition to the environmental objections, a lawsuit and Eskom’s demand for an indemnity against any adverse outcomes from corruption allegations have stalled the deal. Karpowership has described Eskom’s demand as irregular and has denied any wrongdoing. — Antony Sguazzin and Borges Nhamire, with Matthew Hill, (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP