Standard Bank Namibia says it is ready to fund more projects in the country for economic development.
This comes after the financial institution recently co-financed Debmarine Namibia’s N$7 billion vessel.
Debmarine’s Benguela Gem was built in Romania with four local banks, Standard Bank Namibia, RMB Namibia, Nedbank Namibia and Bank Windhoek financing 75 percent of the project.
“Namibia is our home, we drive her growth. Standard Bank supports a variety of sectors, particularly those which are integral to the growth and prospering of the Namibian economy such as mining,” said Standard Bank Namibia’s Head of Marketing, Communication and CSI Magreth Mengo.
Although she could not divulge some projects the bank intends to finance in the near future citing confidentiality issues, Mengo said Standard Bank recently financed some large capital projects including the National Oil Storage Facility, jointly financed with the Development Bank of Namibia and the African Development Bank.
The other large projects include the Alten Solar Power 37 MW, Afritin Mining Project, and the Walvis Bay expansion project by NamPort.
“With this it demonstrates our capabilities across a broad range of sectors,” she said, adding that “Namibia has been and is still in a recession and therefore large capital projects have been limited, but not absent.”
Alten Solar Power will comprise around 140 000 crystalline silicon panels mounted on trackers, when complete this September. The power from the plant is enough to meet the annual electricity needs of over 70 000 Namibians.
AfriTin Mining Ltd is a London-listed tech-metals mining company. The company’s flagship asset is the Uis Tin Mine in Namibia, formerly the world’s largest hard-rock open cast tin mine.
The handling capacity of the port of Walvis Bay was successfully expanded in 2019 tripling its current handling capacity of 355 000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) to 1 005 000 TEUs.
The oil storage facility has a capacity of 75 million litres of fuel, and four dedicated pipelines for diesel, unleaded petrol, jet fuel and heavy fuel oil.
With the recent discovery of oil offshore Namibia and plans to develop the green hydrogen, Mengo said the bank would be interested in funding such projects, ‘provided the economics stack up.’
In February, oil and gas giant Shell said it has made an oil discovery in its exploration well located in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia. The Graff-1 well has proved a working petroleum system for light oil in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia, 270 km from the town of Oranjemund. Total Energies also announced in February that it has made a significant discovery of light oil and associated gas off the coast of Namibia.
The government has awarded Hyphen Hydrogen Energy to develop green hydrogen in the Tsau//Khaeb National Park. The US$9.4 billion project at full development is targeting 300 000 metric tons of Green Hydrogen production a year from 5GW of renewable generation capacity and 3GW electrolyser.
