Eskom to continue reducing power supplies to Botswana until 2012

| Tuesday November 23, 2010 00:00

Eskom cut its maximum supply to Botswana, the world's largest diamond-producing nation, by 40 percent to 250 megawatts in the past two years, the Johannesburg-based utility said in an e-mailed reply to queries yesterday. 'The current agreement will continue to decline in capacity until end of 2012 when it expires.'

Funding constraints have delayed Eskom's 485 billion-rand ($69 billion) capacity-expansion programme aimed at preventing repeats of shortages that temporarily shut platinum and gold mines in South Africa in January 2008.

Eskom's surplus is at times as low as 5 percent, against its target of 15 percent, Mbulelo Ncetezo, electricity manager at the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, said at a conference in Johannesburg yesterday.

Eskom supplied about 410 megawatts to Botswana prior to 2008 and Botswana will start the Morupule coal-fired power plant with 600 megawatts of capacity in 2012, the power producer said.

Botswana has electricity shortages that may worsen over the next two years, Energy Minister Ponatshego Kedikilwe said in June. Debswana Diamond Co., a joint venture between De Beers SA and Botswana's government, is building a 90 megawatt power plant to supply electricity to two of its mines.-(Bloomberg)