KEC International Limited, India’s second-largest manufacturer of electric power transmission towers and one of the largest Power Transmission Engineering, Procurement & Construction companies in the world has been selected to build a 400kV power line connecting Edea to Nyom II in the Littoral and Yaoundé regions respectively.

This was revealed in the contract award notice recently published by Victor Mbemi Nyaknga, the director-general of the Société Nationale de Transport de l’Électricité (SONATREL), the state-owned administrator and operator of Cameroon’s transmission network, at the end of the procurement procedures for the design and construction of the said electricity infrastructure.

The flagship company of RPG Enterprises won the contract ahead of Chinese firms TBEA Co., Ltd that was previously known as Tebian Electric Apparatus, China International Water & Electric Corps, and Sinohydro as well as Transrail Lighting Limited, a leading EPC company in India that offers turnkey solutions in Transmission, Distribution, Rail Electrification, and Smart Lighting.

Reinforcing electricity transmission network in Yaoundé

According to SONATREL, this 400kV power line connecting Edea  (in the Littoral region of Cameroon) to Nyom II (a suburb in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital), will reinforce the electricity transmission network in Yaoundé, where power cuts have become frequent due to the dilapidated state of the transport infrastructure and the lack of backup lines.

The project is expected to be delivered within a duration of 12 months from the date the construction works begun at a cost of over US$ 560m.

Funding for the project

The sources of the funds for this project are not clearly stated, however, it is worth mentioning that in 2017 the Cameroonian government and Deutsche Bank Spain, signed three credit agreements totaling close to US$ 552m for the construction of a 400 kV power transmission line connecting Edéa to the Nyom substation as well as a 90 kV high-voltage electric ring in Yaoundé.

The first commercial credit agreement was signed to cover all of the insurance premiums and the expenses not stated in the project scope. The second agreement was a buyer’s credit guaranteed by the Spanish Export Credit Guarantee Agency (Cesce) while the third agreement was guaranteed by the Belgian Export Credit Agency (Credendo).