Maputo - South Africa has partnered up with energy-rich Mozambique to build a new power station aimed at relieving energy shortages in Africa's largest economy before the 2010 football World Cup, Mozambique's Noticias newspaper reported Friday.

Representatives of South Africa's energy utility Eskom met this week with representatives of Mozambique's state EDM electricity supplier to discuss the plant, which will use natural gas from two fields in southern Mozambique that currently supply South Africa's petrochemicals giant Sasol, the report said.

The cost of the plant, which will be located at Moamba, 60 kilometres north-west of the capital Maputo, is estimated at 1.3 billion dollars and will be borne by Eskom, EDM and Intelec, a private Mozambican energy company, EDM spokesman Moises Mabunda told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Mabunda said the investors had agreed that the plant should be built before the World Cup, which South Africa will be the first African country to host.

"EDM and Eskom are doing everything they can to contribute to end energy shortages in the region," Mabunda said.

The plant at Moamba could produce between 610 and 680 megawatts of power, according to EDM.

South Africa has an acute shortage of power that culminated earlier this year in the forced shutdown for several days of the country's gold and platinum mines.

Gas-rich Mozambique, its poorer neighbour to the north, is one of the few countries in the region with a power surplus, according to Mozambican media. (dpa)