Electricity crisis hits fuel supplies

The Chevron Refinery said it will not be able to supply consumers with liquefied petroleum gas from Wednesday, the Cape Times reported.

Chevron Refinery’s public affairs manager, Phumi Nhlapo, said on Tuesday night that it had sufficient diesel and petrol stocks but could not resume production because it did not have a stable power supply.

She said the refinery began the “restarting process” on Saturday after Friday’s unplanned shutdown caused by the city-wide blackout in Cape Town, but was “unable to move forward with the start-up due to the unavailability of stable power supply”.

“Chevron has sufficient stocks of petrol and diesel.

However, as this delay in the start-up has affected the refinery’s ability to resume production, the refinery will be unable to supply liquefied petroleum gas as of tomorrow [Wednesday] and sales of bunker gas oil [for ships] are currently suspended.

“Bitumen stocks are also limited. Although the refinery’s jet-fuel stocks are also low, contingency plans are being put in place to address this issue,” Nhlapo said.

Eskom’s Jolene Henn said although a damaged transmission line supplying the Acacia substation which, in turn, supplied power to the refinery, had not yet been “fully restored”, Eskom was still supplying power to the refinery.

She could not say how long repairs to the line would take or what needed to be done to get the line up and running. - Sapa