South Africa’s Limpopo Province gave the go-ahead last week for a $10 billion industrial project that includes a 4,600-megawatt coal power plant, a coking facility, and a steel plant. The approval is critical for the development of the controversial Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone.
But the province’s decision is probably too late.
Financing for the coal power plant will be very difficult, if not impossible, to get from Chinese creditors following last year’s announcement by President Xi Jinping that Beijing would no longer support coal power projects abroad, which included the project in Limpopo.
It’s not clear what motivated provincial authorities to act now given the current state of international coal financing from China but there’s no indication from Beijing that the status of the international coal financing ban has changed.
