It has finally come to this for South Africa: signing off on a plan to purchase 700MW of electricity from Mozambique.
A succession of managers at the country’s power utility, Eskom, has mangled the construction of such large projects as the 4,800MW Kusile coal to power plant. Their counterparts at the state hydrocarbon company PetroSA, have mismanaged such otherwise bespoke facility as the Mossel Bay Gas to Liquid (GTL) plant.
Their transgressions have handed South Africa a needless energy crisis.
In-country production of gasoline, kerosene, jet fuels, diesel and other petroleum products, have dropped steeply in the last five years, as investors exit the crude oil refining space. Meanwhile, in-country gas projects that can bolster job prospects are struggling for economic justification.
South Africa’s leaders, it seems, are more excited to be crawling around, cap in hand, requesting to import energy from neighbouring countries, than devise strategy for rapid infusion of indigenous energy projects.
“Mozambique will supply South Africa with…
