PetroSA has made 50-million litres of diesel available to Eskom, says Gordhan

[Nat Quinn]

State-owned PetroSA has made 50-million litres of diesel available to Eskom, which announced last week that it had run out of funds to buy fuel to run its open-cycle gas turbines.

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan told parliament the diesel would be delivered to Eskom by pipeline and trucks.

He was answering questions in the National Assembly, where DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia wanted to know whether he had taken steps to find funds to allow Eskom to purchase diesel to keep the lights on and avoid a potential collapse of the power grid.

Gordhan said money was being found and diesel made available.

He said he met finance minister Enoch Godongwana on Sunday evening “about where money could be found” to buy the fuel.

Teams from both departments also met on Monday to get to grips with the Eskom crisis, which also involves malfeasance and the reliability of the power utility’s plants.

Gordhan said a number of options were identified and were being evaluated by Treasury, adding that he expected a response on funding later this week.

“Once we have the funding pipeline sorted out with the Treasury, we can get the supplier pipeline arranged,” he said.

PetroSA and mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe would ensure they had sufficient supplies available at all times, said Gordhan.

“In respect of finance, the unreliability of our generation plant is hampering efforts to provide greater stability and certainty to the country. The inadequacy of maintenance, the corruption in coal, in fuel oil and in parts provision, among other things, and more breakdowns, mean more diesel has to be utilised,” he said.

It was in this context that Eskom ran out of the R10bn it had budgeted for diesel this year. By November 17 the company was in for R14.7bn.

 

PetroSA has made 50-million litres of diesel available to Eskom, says Gordhan (timeslive.co.za)

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