Tlou’s flagship project is the Lesedi Power Project (“Lesedi”) in Botswana’s Central District. At Lesedi the Company is developing and initial 10MW of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) gas-fired power and plans to expand to 25MW over the coming years.
CBM is the extraction of methane gas that is adsorbed to underground coal. Tlou has developed a large CBM gas field in Botswana following exploration and evaluation of its project acreage.
The Company’s licences are ideally located in Botswana’s Central district with direct access to the grid. Prospecting (Exploration) Licences cover approximately 8,000 Km2 and the Mining (production) licence covers another 800 Km2 which is valid until 2042.
Tlou’s project area is prospective for gas, based on known underlying gassy coal sequences. Furthermore, the Company has utilised aeromagnetic data, which provided considerable sub-surface geological information.
A summary of current reserves and resources in billion cubic feet (BCF) is outlined below. Please refer to public market announcements and the Reserves Statement in the Company’s last annual report for full details.
2P Reserves / 40.8 BCF / (~6.8 million barrels of oil equivalent “MMboe”)
3P Reserves / 426.6 BCF / (~71.1 MMboe)
2C Resources / 214 BCF / (~35.7 MMboe)
The gas in the ground if extracted commercially is sufficient to produce power for decades. A 100MW project is estimated to require around 274 BCF of methane over a 25-year period. This assumes 1MW of power being produced from 300,000 standard cubic feet of methane gas production per day.
Electricity will be generated on site and sold into the national power grid in Botswana. Power will be sold to Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) under an agreed 10MW Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Access to the grid is available at the Lesedi project via a 66kV transmission line capable of carrying up to 25MW of power.
The project is planned to grow rapidly with initial expansion to 10MW following by the secondary 25MW target. The electrical substation at the Lesedi Project is designed for up to 25MW of generation. Beyond this the Company plans to go towards 100MW or more.
Tlou is exploring other options for use of power generated from Tlou’s CBM gas including Data Centres, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and mining of cryptocurrencies.