Industry

Africa’s first mRNA-based vaccine plant to be set up in Rwanda next year

BioNTech, the Rwandan Government and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar during an MoU signing ceremony on October 27th. Photo: BioNTech

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German biotechnology company BioNTech has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) with the Rwandan Government and the Institut Pasteur (Dakar) to construct Africa’s first mRNA-based manufacturing facility in Rwanda next year.

The agreement was signed on the sideline of the Second Ministerial Meeting of the African Union and the European Union and follows the signing of a Joint Communiqué between the same parties in Berlin last August.

“We aim to accelerate the building of a GMP-certified manufacturing facility and plan to begin the construction on site in mid-2022,” said Sierk Poetting, COO of BioNTech.

BioNTech’s long-term vision is to develop and grow a regional manufacturing network to support the access to vaccines manufactured in Africa. The facility in Rwanda is expected to be the first node in such a decentralized African end-to-end manufacturing network.

The first production line will have a drug manufacturing capacity of 50 millions of e.g. COVID-19 vaccine does a year once operational. The capacity can then be further expanded with the addition of additional manufacturing lines and sites across the network.

While BioNTech sets up the facility and staffs it, the Rwandan Development Board and the Institut Pasteur will be building up the required human resources capacity and systems to take over ownership and operational duties as soon as possible.

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Mainstream Renewable Power big winner in South Africa’s 2.5 GW renewable energy bid round

South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), Mr. Gwede Mantashe, has announced yesterday the preferred bidders for the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) Bid Window 5. The round resulted in the selection of five consortium as preferred bidders for 25 projects totalling 2,583 MW of renewable energy. The bidders will jointly invest R50 billion in those projects, expected to reach financial close early next year and to start generating by April 2024. Out of the 2.5GW of awarded capacity, 1,608 MW will be based on onshore wind and 975 MW on solar PV. Mainstream Renewable Power alone secured 12 projects totaling 1,274 MW (824 MW of onshore wind and 450 MW of solar PV). To date, the company has been awarded over 2.1 GW of renewable energy projects under the REIPPPP and has become the largest renewable energy developer of the country by capacity. The company currently owns 100% of the projects awarded but ownership will transfer to the equity consortium upon financial close including Mainstream (25%), Globeleq (26%), Africa Rainbow Energy & Power (23.25%), H1 Holdings (23.25%) and Community Trusts (2.5%). Other preferred bidders notably include Scatec with 273 MW, a Norwegian company that entered the South African energy market back in 2010 and already commissioned several solar PV projects under previous REIPPPP windows. Scatec had also secured three solar projects totaling 150 MW during the 2 GW Risk Mitigation IPP procurement programme (RMIPPPP) earlier this year. Scatec will own 51% of the equity in the projects while its local Black Economic Empowerment partner H1 Holdings will own 46.5% and a Community Trust holding will hold the remaining 2.5%. Scatec will also be the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) provider and provide Operation & Maintenance as well as Asset Management services to the power plants. EDF Renewables secured three projects, as did Engie and Red Rocket. Finally, the joint-venture of Mulilo and Total secured one project. Mulilo Total is already progressing two projects it has been awarded under the RMIPPPP last June, with a combined capacity of almost 275 MW. Window 5 resulted in some of the cheapest bid price on record, making South Africa’s wind and solar energy very competitive against coal. From 2012 to 2015, South Africa already awarded 6.3 GW of renewable energy capacity via windows 1, 2, 3, 3.5 and 4. Thousands of jobs were created, while attracting billions on foreign direct investment. While the projects from Window 4 are just reaching commissioning stage, South Africa just closed its Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), awarding another 2 GW of projects earlier this year. Following Window 5, Window 6 is expected to be launched this year to announce the winners in May 2022, while Window 7 would be launched in 2022 to that winners are awarded in Q3 of the same year. Finally, South Africa is also planning a storage and gas-specific windows, with the former launched in November this year while the latter would see its request for proposal issued in Q1 2022.

ExxonMobil to resume drilling offshore Angola in June 2022

ExxonMobil’s affiliate in Angola has just awarded Valaris a two-year contract for drillship VALARIS DS-9. The rig is to be reactivated and mobilized to Angola in June 2022. This marks the resumption of drilling activities for ExxonMobil in Angola following a June 2019 agreement with National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) to further invest in the development of Block 15. While ExxonMobil has deployed four floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) units on Block 15 in 2004, 2005 and 2008, the license offers significant potential for redevelopment to tap into remaining reserves. In the first nine months of 2021, the block exported an average of 158,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) according to data from Angola’s Ministry of Finance. To facilitate further development, the block’s 11 development areas were merged into only four in 2019. Additional investment is expected to unlock about 40,000 bopd of additional production and generate 1,000 local jobs as expansion projects get executed. ExxonMobil’s multi-year drilling program on the block is expected to involve 17 wells in phase one, followed by about 20 wells in phase 2.