K&M Advisors LLC, a leading financial and technical advisory firm, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a contract by the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) to serve as the transaction advisor for a new 250 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plant in Tanzania.

K&M’s scope of work includes finalizing the site selection, setting technical and functional specifications, developing the financial model, preparing prequalification documents and the request for proposals, drafting all project agreements, managing the prequalification and subsequent bidding process, evaluating proposals, and advising TANESCO during negotiations with the preferred bidder. This assignment is expected to last approximately 18 months.

“We are pleased to have been selected by TANESCO to advise them on a competitively procured IPP transaction that could set a new benchmark for other African nations and help Tanzania resolve its power generation deficit,” states Alfonso Guzman, President of K&M Advisors LLC.

Tanzania’s power sector is in need of additional thermal generation capacity while the country also seeks to reduce its costs of electricity generation. With abundant indigenous gas resources from the Songo Songo gas field, natural gas-fired power plants are an ideal option to help Tanzania achieve these two objectives. Natural gas-fired power plants offer a firm source of power generation at a substantially lower cost than plants running on liquid fossil fuels. TANESCO has identified several natural gas-fired power projects planned for development during the next 10 years, including the 250 MW CCGT project on which K&M is advising.

K&M Advisors has a hard-to-match track record as transaction advisor for thermal power plants, including power plants in Africa. K&M has been the lead transaction advisor on eighteen thermal power generation PPP projects in emerging markets, all of which reached financial close, totaling 7,221 MW of capacity and over US$6.5 billion of investment. In eleven of these eighteen power projects, K&M was the lead transaction advisor to the public procurement authority.  In the remaining seven, K&M advised project developers and investors. K&M has substantial experience in privately financed, competitively bid power plants in Africa, where K&M has provided advisory services for the development of eighteen power plants, including acting as the lead transaction advisor on four of them.

Check out Project Finance International’s feature on K&M’s contract here