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Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon de Ryhove.

Making headlines today:

South Africa's Kusile power station will be phased in one year later than initially planned to help accommodate Eskom's lower requested tariff increases of 35% a year between 2010 and 2013.

The group's initial application, submitted on September 30, 2009, sought increases of 45% a year.

The State-owned power utility also seeks to secure a private equity partner for as much as 30% of the 142-billion-rand coal-fired Kusile project, which is being built in Mpumalanga. The 4 800-MW project was initially scheduled to have the first of its six units commissioned in June 2013, and its last in October 2016.

Petrochemicals group Sasol will invest 8,4-billion-rand to double its hard wax production in South Africa by 2014.

Sasol Wax will increase its wax production capacity at its Sasolburg site by about 40% by 2012, before further increasing capacity in a second phase, which is currently expected to come into production by 2014.

Sasol has already completed the basic engineering for the project and has ordered some of the long-lead items for the project's first phase. This also includes preinvestment activities for the second phase of the project.

Also making headlines:

The global airline industry faces a likely 11-billion-dollars in losses this year.
The Purchasing Managers Index shows that South Africa manufacturing is back in expansionary territory.
South Africa meets with Brazil, China and India ahead of the Copenhagen talks.
And, Zambia will introduce a fixed benchmark interest rate in 2010.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.