Refinery battle getting heated

There is a most fascinating battle taking shape within South Africa’s liquid-fuels environment over whether or not the country should take the plunge and make further preparations for an investment into a 400 000 bl/d oil refinery at Coega, in...

Three positives from unhappy Nersa ruling

While there is naturally much disappointment about the fact that the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) granted average nominal electricity price increases of just over 25% for the next three years, there are three reasons to take...

Bidding versus licensing

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) Dr Rod Crompton posed an interesting question recently about whether South Africa’s current system of licencing energy infrastructure was effective and appropriate. Speaking in his...

Power, not policy

The senior Southern Africa analyst at international business risks consultancy, Control Risks, provided an interesting take on the whole mine nationalisation debate, which I tend to share. Anne Fruehauf argued last week that nationalisation was...

Going to Pot(holes)!

Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) president Zulch Lötter calculates that, while it costs R175 000 a kilometre to resurface a road, the price tag escalates to a full R3-million a kilometre to rebuild one that “gone to pot(holes)”....

Judicious management

Against the backdrop of considerable public discourse on the potential for a leftward shift in macroeconomic policy, President Jacob Zuma’s address to last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, was interesting. In it, the...

Smaller, lighter, more efficient

No other real-economic sector felt the icy winds of the recent global financial crisis more bitterly than the automotive industry. To be sure, there has been no generic thawing out either, with the chilling themes of bail-outs and paybacks, brand...

Old and new power plays over power

Many old hairy chestnuts were laid at the feet of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) during its January hearings into an application by Eskom for tariff increases of 35% a year between 2010 and 2013. Always a favourite with...