GE Vernova will supply the gas turbine for the Songon combined-cycle power plant, a 372 MW project near Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. The company announced the order on 20 October and says it was booked in the third quarter. The plant is built around one 9E gas turbine and its generator, and commercial operation is planned for 2029.
Who Builds What At Songon
The developer is Songon Energies S.A., an Ivorian investment company for energy infrastructure, and China Energy International Engineering is the EPC contractor. GE Vernova's scope goes beyond the turbine island: according to its release it also covers the high-voltage substation, digital software and long-term services. Financing agreements were signed in June.
The Ivorian news agency AIP reported that the common terms agreement between the technical and financial partners was signed in Abidjan on 1 June 2026. It gives the total investment as 423.166 billion FCFA, of which 342.129 billion FCFA goes into construction, names Energy China as technical partner and says the government aimed for financial close by the end of 2026.
A Plant Sized Against Fast Demand Growth
GE Vernova puts the plant at up to 12% of the country's installed capacity and says its output would cover the needs of about five million Ivorian homes. The release cites an electrification rate of 94.3% in 2024 and demand growing by 10 to 15% a year, with universal access targeted for 2030 under the government's Electricity for All programme (PEPT). The company expects up to 1,400 jobs; AIP breaks its own estimate down into about 1,130 direct construction jobs, 260 in operation and 1,172 indirect ones.
The 9E is one of the long-established frames of the heavy-duty class. Choosing it over something newer says that on a grid growing this fast, a model with a long fleet history and a known maintenance routine was worth more than the last point of efficiency.
Coastal Air And A 2029 Start
Three years from turbine order to commercial operation is a normal schedule for a combined cycle, and the turbine is rarely what decides it. The heat recovery boiler, the steam side and the cooling of the cycle and of all the auxiliaries have to work in coastal West African air: humid all year, salt-laden near the lagoon, dusty in the dry season. On such sites corrosion protection and access for cleaning belong in the specification of every air-cooled item from the start, not in the first service report. More on gas turbine plants and their auxiliaries.
One question worth asking early on a project split between a turbine supplier and an EPC contractor: whose scope is the cooling of the turbine lube oil and the generator? Interfaces like that are where the gaps appear.
Sources: GE Vernova, AIP
