wiredinUSA August 2015

INDEX

Move to Morocco

Brazilian grid growth

China’s State Grid has won the concession to build and operate the second power transmission line to connect the massive Belo Monte hydropower plant to the national Brazilian grid. Belo Monte's second line will be Brazil’s longest, stretching 2,500km from the hydroelectric complex in northern Para state, in the Amazon jungle, to southeastern Rio de Janeiro. The Chinese state-owned company, which won the concession for the first line in 2013, bid against Spain's Abengoa in the auction for the project estimated to cost $2.21 billion. According to the auction's rules, the company that offered to collect the smallest annual amount on tariffs would win. StateGrid’s bidwas for acharge 19percent below the maximum allowed. The project is expected to be operational by 2019.

Furukawa Electric is to establish a new manufacturing facility in Tangier, northern Morocco– its first factory inAfrica. Furukawa is to invest $8 million in developing the unit, to satisfy the growing demand for communications infrastructure in Africa. Furukawa projects demand for fiber optic cables in the African continent and the Middle East to grow to 32 million kilometers in 2018, an increase of 80 percent from 18 million kilometers in 2014. The facility will assemble optic fibers, made at the company’s US and Japanese plants, into end products. With the opening of its Morocco factory, Furukawa is thought to be the first major company to produce the cables in Africa. Furukawa is said to control around 10 percent of the global fiber optic market, behind Corning of the US and Prysmian of Italy. The company said that its choice of Morocco was due to the country’s easy access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, as well as its high security level and political stability.

ASIA / AFRICA NEWS

wiredInUSA - August 2015

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