South African power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is examining how the suspension of a pact that enables it to import nuclear fuel components from the US will affect its sole atomic plant.
(Bloomberg) — South African power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is examining how the suspension of a pact that enables it to import nuclear fuel components from the US will affect its sole atomic plant.
The Agreement for Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy between the US and South Africa expired on Dec. 4. That resulted in Westinghouse Electric Co. losing its license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to export fuel-assembly components to Eskom’s Koeberg plant near Cape Town.
The development may frustrate Eskom’s efforts to end record nationwide power outages that are crimping the economy. The matter could be raised with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is visiting South Africa this week.
ANC Energy Crisis Meeting Is Disrupted by Blackout (Jan. 25, 4:30 p.m.)
An energy conference in Johannesburg organized by the governing African National Congress was disrupted when a scheduled blackout meant that online speakers scheduled to address attendees couldn’t be heard. After about 15 minutes of disruption, online attendees were instead directed to the ANC’s social media accounts to watch the rest of the meeting.
Capital City Owes Eskom $81 Million (Jan. 25, 11:58 a.m.)
The municipality that includes South Africa’s capital owes Eskom 1.4 billion rand ($81 million) for electricity.
The City of Tshwane, which includes Pretoria, has been “erratic” in paying its bill and that exacerbates Eskom’s cash-flow crisis, the company said in statement on Wednesday. Eskom threatened in August to disconnect the municipality.
“Eskom does not have the financial capacity to finance the City of Tshwane’s operations and calls on the city to do right by its residents and pay the bulk electricity account to enable Eskom to continue supplying electricity to the city,” it said.
Poultry Firm Predicts Losses on Power Outages (Jan. 25, 9:15 a.m.)
Astral Foods Ltd., one of the country’s chicken producers by revenue, expects its poultry division to incur “significant losses” in the first half of its financial year because of incessant power cuts and high input prices.
The cost to produce chicken exceeds the selling price by at least 2 rand per kilogram, Astral said.
Eskom has enforced blackouts for 87 consecutive days, with up to 12 hours of daily blackouts earlier this month. The outages have forced poultry producers such as Astral to spend additional money on backup energy and in some cases pause round-the-clock operations for long periods, resulting in backlogs and production cutbacks.
Opposition March to ANC Head Office (Jan. 25, 9:30 a.m.)
The main opposition Democratic Alliance marched to the headquarters of South Africa’s governing ANC in central Johannesburg on Wednesday to protest power cuts and electricity-price increases.
Members of the ANC’s youth wing gathered outside the offices near where the DA protest is heading, Newzroom Afrika reported.
Cape Town to Pay Businesses, Households for Power (Jan. 24, 11:33 a.m.)
Cape Town will start paying businesses for the excess power they produce from June, and plans to buy electricity from households before the end of the year as it seeks to avoid implementing high levels of outages.
The city has allocated 15 million rand to pay for energy generated by small-scale embedded generators for the remainder of the financial year until June, it said in a statement.
Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse will make an announcement on Thursday about that city’s plans to manage and mitigate rolling blackouts.
Opposition Sues Government Over Power Crisis (Jan. 24, 3:41 p.m.)
South Africa’s biggest labor union and opposition parties including the United Democratic Movement and ActionSA sued President Cyril Ramaphosa, the energy and public enterprises ministries and Eskom over their approach to ending the 15-year energy crisis.
The lawsuit seeks remedies such as the exemption of all hospitals, small businesses and agriculture from electricity outages and having the planned shutdown of coal-fired facilities reconsidered.
–With assistance from Antony Sguazzin.
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