Natural piped gas supplier Egoli Gas has signed a five-year multimillion rand contract to supply gas to financial institution Standard Bank’s Rosebank branch. The gas will be used to generate power for the branch’s own needs.

Egoli Gas MD Bheki Vilakazi says more companies are using gas to generate their own power and reduce their reliance on State-owned power utility Eskom, owing to electricity supply constraints.

Power is generated through cogeneration, or through trigeneration.

Vilakazi says Egoli Gas serves six market segments. The first of these is the domestic residential market that makes up 80% of its customer base and provides about 20% of its income.

The second sector is multi- dwelling clients such as townhouse complexes and household residential apartment buildings. In these markets, the gas supplied is used for applications such as space heating, the heating of water from geysers and for cooking.

The third sector is central water clients that use central gas-fired boilers, while the fourth is the commercial sector, made up of customers such as hotels, restaurants and take-away food outlets.

The other two sectors, small-scale industrial customers which use 300 GJ or less a month, and large industrial customers which use more than 300 GJ a month, contribute some 80% of the company’s sales volume and its income.

Egoli Gas has a number of ongoing multimillion-rand contracts with companies such as financial services provider Absa and cellular network provider MTN.

The company’s biggest con- tract to date has been a three-year, multimillion-rand con- tract with the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hos-pital, which was signed in 2008. The company is negotiating with the hospital to have the contract renewed.

Meanwhile, Vilakazi says the company is looking at expanding its business this year.

As part of its network extension plans, there is a possibility of building a gas plant in Sandton to serve the corporate market in that area.

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