Friday, April four, 2008

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Christy van der Merwe.

Making headlines today:

The Eskom executive tasked with the so-called ‘supply-side recovery' of the group's generation plant, has acknowledged that he is "very worried" about the state of the utility's power stations, and has warned that some of the remedies could take "a long time" to fully implement.

Chief officer of generation, Brian Dames, who, since early February, has been overseeing both the three hundred and fifty billion rand build programme, as well as a recovery of coal stocks and operational performance, has confirmed with Engineering News that the plants are in worse condition than he had initially expected.

Until now, the utility has dismissed ongoing suggestions that maintenance has been allowed to slip over the last few years, and that this is at the heart of recent underperformance - at times, in January and February, up to twenty five percent of its capacity was simply unavailable due to planned and unplanned events.

Production from AngloGold Ashanti's South African operations had been restored to one hundred percent at a lower ninety six percent electricity allocation, CEO Mark Cutifani said on Thursday.

Cutifani told the Gordon Institute of Business Science, in Johannesburg, that the company had succeeded in implementing a four comma five percent energy-efficiency saving, and that it was currently working at around one hundred percent production.

He saw the potential to improve energy efficiency by another five percent in the next twelve months, and he told Mining Weekly Online that the company's new end-2009 target was to produce at one hundred percent with ninety percent power equivalent.

South Africa's Transport Department will implement a fifty-five billion rand scheme to improve traffic flow on the freeways of its economic hub, Gauteng, which carries more than one hundred and eighty thousand vehicles a day.

The Gauteng Freeway Improvement Scheme, which would be implemented in phases and completed by 2018, would expand the carrying capacity of existing roads, and further expansions of the freeway network, it said this week.

The Department of Transport would invest more than twelve billion rand in the first phase of this project, which was due for completion by 2010. This amount would almost double for the second phase, due for completion in 2015, when the State would invest some twenty billion rand. In the final phase, which would be completed by 2018, a further twenty three billion rand would be invested.

Also making headlines today:

February's power consumption output increased, Stats SA reports
The DME's independent power project goes back to the drawing board
Mozambique signs 8 billion dollar oil refinery deal
Implats' Marula mining rights converted to new-order rights
JSE exploration newcomer, Kiwara, sets sights on Zambia's metals
And, Zimbabwe-exposed stocks rise on possible Mugabe exit

In political news:

A new salary scale for teachers is agreed upon
All eyes are on Mugabe's leadership meeting
EU aid went down 1,7 billion euros in 2007, says aid chief
And, Kenya power-sharing cabinet to be named Sunday, says Odinga

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories, visit engineeringnews.co.za, miningweekly.com and polity.org.za