Eskom has confirmed that power was temporarily suspended to Zimbabwe due to planned maintenance power outages.
”We had a lot of maintenance outages that were planned; it is normal at this time of the year.
”Because most of the plants are going through midlife maintenance and refurbishments, it took longer to bring the plants back into supply,” said the power company’s spokesperson, Fani Zulu.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s Department of Minerals and Energy has rejected as incorrect media reports that a decision was taken to stop fuel supplies to Zimbabwe.
”The department is not aware of such a decision. I have checked with my principal and no such decision was made,” said spokesperson Yvonne Mfolo.
The Sunday Independent reported that the department sent a circular to fuel companies telling them that with ”immediate effect” they must cease supplying fuel to Zimbabwe, citing ”refining problems”.
The South African Petroleum Industry Association (Sapia) on Sunday reported temporary fuel shortages after a disruption in production volumes from the Natref refinery.
The refinery — co-owned by Sasol and Total South Africa — had experienced an unscheduled shutdown of its crude distillation unit at the end of January.
”From an industry point of view, we have to keep neighbouring countries supplied as best we can,” said Sapia director Colin McClelland.
”There may be sporadic shortages in South Africa, which by the same token could affect other countries, but we wouldn’t cut off a country like Botswana or Namibia or Zimbabwe.”
Most major fuel companies in Zimbabwe source their fuel from South Africa because the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe is bankrupt and has been unable to find sufficient foreign currency for fuel since March last year, the Independent reported.
Eskom’s Zulu said Zimbabwe’s contract with the power company worked on ”a day ahead” basis where the country would stipulate it would need a certain number of megawatts, up to 300MW of power.
”Based on the availability of plants, we will then commit to a given amount of megawatts.
”The last 10 days we have given them all the megawatts they requested, but prior to that we had instances where we gave less than was required because of availability of plants,” Zulu said.
News agency DPA reported a senior official in the Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Commission telling the Sunday Mail that ”forced outages” in the supply from South Africa, as well as inadequate supplies of coal to power Zimbabwe’s main Hwange power station, had put supplies ”under serious threat”.
The problem had been worsened by the Zimbabwe electricity authority’s inability to settle its debts with its major coal supplier and with the National Railways of Zimbabwe, which transports the coal.
The agency reported almost 40% of Zimbabwe’s electricity supply is imported from regional suppliers in South Africa, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. – Sapa