Ivory Coast is in talks to build a 200 megawatt power plant fuelled by liquefied natural gas as it seeks to avoid outages that rocked the country earlier this year, Mines and Energy Minister Thomas Camara said on Tuesday.

A prolonged dry season reduced water levels at hydropower dams in May, leaving households and businesses without power as well as cutting supplies to neighbouring West African countries including Mali.

Camara said flows had returned to normal since July 9, while exports had risen as of this week.

"We have taken steps to ensure that this circumstantial situation does not repeat itself," he told a news conference, announcing the plan for the LNG plant.

The ministry will share further details on the cost and timeframe for the plant's construction once discussions are concluded, he said.

The outages in May were a result of a generation deficit of about 200 MW, or nearly 10% of the national power company's 2,230 MW capacity, its director general said at the time.