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Friday, July 17, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

Investec Asset Management's soft commodities analyst Dawid Heyl says that the development of El Niño weather conditions later this year, as is currently being forecast by a number of weather services, is likely to raise the price of a range of agricultural commodities.

Heyl says that, historically, such events have had an effect on Australian and South American grain production, as well as on sugar, rice and wheat output in India and other parts of Asia. Palm oil output in Niger and Malaysia was also vulnerable to the change in rainfall and temperature patterns associated with the phenomenon.

But, regardless of such a development, the group, which has 2,5-billion-dollars invested in hard and soft commodities and resource equities, is bullish on the outlook of a range of agricultural products, especially maize and sugar.

CIC Energy has announced that it received notification from South African power utility Eskom that it couldn't, in the absence of clarity on its funding model, commit to the purchase of electricity from CIC Energy's proposed 3-billion-dollar Mmambula project, in Botswana.

CIC Energy had been hoping to finalise a power purchase agreement with the power-stressed utility by midyear, and was said to be well advanced with its preparations on a 1 200 MW coal-fired facility, which was scheduled to come on-stream in 2013.

Also making headlines:

WTO members refuse Pascal Lamy's 32% pay rise request.
Angola's economy is seen to be improving in the second half of the year.
Southern African countries commit to 225-million-dollar transmission project.
And, Sanral receives a 120-million-Euro loan from EIB

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