Africa- and UK-focused energy company Kibo Energy’s primary focus going forward will be on renewable energy opportunities, part of which will see Kibo jointly develop a portfolio of waste-to-energy projects in South Africa.
Kibo, therefore, intends to appoint specialist advisers to assist it in developing and implementing an appropriate disposal strategy to dispose of its coal assets or possibly reposition these assets to make use of alternative fuel sources other than coal, given rapid advances in developing alternative fuel sources in this domain.
The objective of this disposal strategy will be to ensure that maximum value is realised from these projects, in which significant value was created over several years, the company says.
Kibo CEO Louis Coetzee notes that, set against a background where momentum in the global clean energy revolution increases, the company believes “it is appropriate to refocus our strategy to use our team’s expertise and contacts, as well as partnerships in the energy sector to rapidly grow our renewable energy portfolio and capitalise on a ubiquitous growth story that will run for many years”.
Shifting the company’s primary focus to renewable energy projects will provide the company with the opportunity to develop projects with much smaller capital expenditure requirements and with a significantly shorter route to revenue generation that is associated with much less risk and access to a far wider and cheaper array of nondilutive funding options, he adds.
Notwithstanding Kibo’s firm belief that clean coal will continue to play a key role in Africa’s energy dynamics, the company also believes that a larger entity would be better placed to take its coal-fuelled power projects to production.
“We hope to maintain exposure to the significant upside potential of these projects but have decided to step down from our role as their primary funder and developer,” Coetzee comments.