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SA mines could remain shut for up to six weeks - Eskom
In an interview on 702 @ 12:15 on Friday, 25 January 2008
[miningmx.com] -- SOUTH African mines could remain shut for up to six weeks as power parastatal Eskom continued to battle to meet the country’s electricity demand, Eskom GM for demand side Andrew Etzinger said.
“We gave miners no timeframe but if the weather forecasts - which have been predicting more floods next week - are anything to go by, the situation could go on for up to six weeks,” said Etzinger.
Earlier today Eskom informed major mining companies that they had to shut down operations because they (Eskom) could not guarantee electricity supply.
“We cannot sell what we don’t have,” said Etzinger. He was speaking on the Midday Report, a daily current affairs programme on South African talk radio station 702.
Commenting on the letter sent to mining companies, Etzinger said Eskom did the right thing.
“Informing them was a responsible thing to do,
we had to do what we did (requesting mines to shut down operations) in order to get back onto our feet."
Eskom also sent the same letter to aluminium smelting companies.
Etzinger said the demand situation had gotten worse over the last few days, owing to a number of factors.
“We’ve had to load shed up to 4000MW recently and that is something we have never done before,” he said.
According to Etzinger recent flooding also made it difficult for power plants to operate.
“It’s very difficult to burn wet coal and that just added to the already existing problems.”
Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin said earlier today that government and Eskom could not pull electricity out of a hat.
“Electricity is not a rabbit that we can pull out of a hat; we need to work collaboratively to save energy,” he said.
Department of Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica also urged the public to save energy until the crisis is
averted.
“Saving energy is the only solution to the problem; the government cannot do it alone."
Government is to organise a national campaign encouraging and educating people about energy saving.”
Industry consumed about a third of the country’s electricity.
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