Date Published: 01/04/11

UBA partners Gabon, CODER on $234m electricity projects

THE United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, through its subsidiaries – UBA Gabon and UBA Capital (Africa), is collaborating with Company for the Development of Renewable Energy (CODER) and Gabon’s Ministry of Energy in the construction of a 36mw hydropower generating plant in Gabon.

UBA Capital (Africa) is the investment banking arm of UBA Group on the continent, the financial adviser to CODER in the power project to be built on the FE 2 Dam, at the river Okano in the northern part of the country.

The 36MW Hydro Power Project and a sister project at Imperatrice Dam, also a CODER project, are expected to stimulate economic activity in the oil-rich Gabon and help towards poverty alleviation. It is part of a 30-year concession package on electricity generation, negotiated by CODER with Gabonese government in May 2010.

The participation of UBA Group in the projects is in furtherance of the group’s infrastructural development initiatives across Africa, and in line with its increasing involvement in big project financing and advisory services across the continent. The electricity projects estimated to cost about $234 million has a completion time of 30 months.

The ground breaking ceremony of the FE 2 project, the first of the two projects was performed recently by the Gabonese president, Mr. Ali Bongo Ondimba and witnessed by the officials of CODER and UBA Gabon. The project is part of the 30-year concession package negotiated by CODER with the Gabonese government.