By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State-owned oil company PetroSA has made 50-million litres of diesel available for Eskom, which has run out of funds to buy diesel.
Eskom said on Tuesday it has burned over R12 billion worth of diesel over the course of the year – double what it initially budgeted – trying to keep the country’s light’s on.
The utility, which is waiting for more details on government’s plan to take on a significant portion of its R400 billion debt, says that it is now financially untenable to burn more diesel at its Open Cycle Gas Turbines.
The use of turbines is needed to compensate for the loss of generation capacity due to breakdowns of Eskom’s power stations and assist in reducing the level of load-shedding.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has said the government identified 50 million litres of diesel to make immediately available to Eskom from PetroSA, as the power utility awaits a permanent solution.
Gordhan said some of the diesel from PetroSA had travelled by pipeline and some by truck. He said the Eskom board was also looking at generation solutions, but more needs to be done in this regard. He said the board met with power station managers and definitive measures will be announced by next week.
“The department itself has been liaising between Eskom and PetroSA to find a way within the limited resources Eskom has, to find immediate availability of diesel to Eskom. By this morning, 50 million litres of diesel have been provided by PetroSA,” said Gordhan.
Gordhan said options were identified along with Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana for a more permanent solution to the diesel challenge, and these were being evaluated by the National Treasury team. He said the Department of Public Enterprises expected a response from the National Treasury soon.
“We have taken steps to find funding. Firstly, as a matter of urgency, the Minister of Finance and myself talked on Sunday evening about where money could be found. Secondly, there was a meeting between my delegation and the Minister of Finance’s delegation [where we talked] about the challenges Eskom faced,” Gordhan said.
Gordhan also described DA leader John Steenhuisen’s unannounced oversight visit to Kusile power station as a political points-scoring exercise.
During a live broadcast about the country’s energy crisis on Wednesday, Steenhuisen said he was prevented from entering Kusile, in Mpumalanga, and could not perform his parliamentary duties.
His visit to the power station in Delmas was part of the DA’s campaign to put pressure on Gordhan and President Cyril Ramaphosa to change its strategy in dealing with the country’s load shedding crisis.
Responding to Steenhuisen, Gordhan said in a statement that the DA leader had been warned he could not randomly pitch at a coal power station to conduct an oversight visit.
Gordhan’s office said proper procedures for such visits had to be channelled through his office, so he could inform Eskom.