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Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

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

Making headlines today:

The commissioning of the first unit of Eskom's Ingula pumped-storage scheme has now been delayed by between three and four months from its initial 2012 commissioning date. Ingula is on the border between the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.

Eskom corporate specialist for hydro Frans Louwringer said on Tuesday that the first 333-MW unit of the nearly 17-billion-rand project would only be commissioned by January 2013.

He said that the other three units would be commissioned in April, July and the last one in October 2013.

The National Empowerment Fund has invested 50-million-rand in South African satellite systems manufacturer SunSpace and Information Systems. This is to allow it to increase its capacity and improve its competitiveness in the aerospace market.

The NEF would invest the funds directly into black economic-empowerment consortium Mihle, which owned 25% of the company's equity.

The deal is in line with the NEF's mandate of fostering and supporting broad-based black economic-empowerment. The NEF stated that the deal was one of a series of recent investments aimed at rapidly increasing black participation in strategic industries and enterprises.

Also making headlines:

A new 250-MW hydropower plant in Uganda will be operational in mid-2011.
The Bureau for Economic Research expects South Africa's economic growth to contract by 2% this year.
South Africa's jobless rate is up as the recession bites.
And, Anglo American sells the rest of its Hulamin stake.

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

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