MINERS in Zambia have turned to an unlikely source in order to offset electricity shortages caused by a drought: Eskom, the until recently beleagurered South African power utility.
Bloomberg News cited Anthony Mukutuma, a director at First Quantum Minerals’s Zambian unit as saying that imports from Eskom is helping to minimise faltering hydroelectric supply. “Power imports from Eskom that were not factored into earlier assumptions are mitigating the impact of this decrease,” Mukutuma told the newswire.
“As such, we expect power supply to First Quantum Minerals operations to continue uninterrupted,” he said.
Eskom’s transmission unit has a deal to supply 250MW of power to Zambia, and has been doing so since August, the utility told Bloomberg News. That’s equivalent to more than 10% of Zambia’s normal national demand, it said.
There are plans to double that within a month under a separate deal with the help of a regional electricity-trading company called Africa GreenCo, CEO Ana Hajduka said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Zambia has almost run out of water for generation at Kariba, the world’s biggest man-made reservoir, where it’s weeks away from having to completely shut down for the first time.
First Quantum accounts for about half of Zambia’s copper output, and operates Africa’s biggest nickel mine there, said Bloomberg.
The mining industry typically makes up about half of national power demand. While normal generation capacity is about 3,777MW, the plants are currently producing 1,019MW.
