Senegal can no longer afford to be dependent on oil and is now eyeing coal as the answer for its power plants, the head of Senegal`s Senelec power company said Tuesday.

`The majority of the development of de electricity production park will be based on coal` and coal-powered plants, Senelec chairman Iatsoukabe Fall told a press conference.

While the West African country has enough power plants to meet its energy needs nearly all of them are oil-powered. The high cost of oil earlier in the year was blamed for a number of power cuts.

`Coal will take up a prominent position,` Energy minister Samuel Amete Sall said at the press conference. The project to build a coal powered plant has been relaunched so as to give Senegal a less expensive energy source,` he added.

In January Senelec signed a deal with Swedish Nykomb Synergetics, who will build a coal plant pour in Sendou, close to the capital Dakar expected to be partly operational in 2010.