Eskom: Impact of Russia, Ukraine conflict on diesel price a concern
Eskom says the steep rise in the price of brent crude due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could have an impact on its operations.
It has been two weeks since the Russian military invaded Ukraine, sending the price of brent crude to 14-year highs.
Subsequent sanctions slapped on Russia by the USA and the United Kingdom have also contributed to the increase in crude oil prices.
The power utility briefed the media on the state of the national power grid on Tuesday amid the last bout of stage two load shedding.
Eskom CFO Calib Cassim says the utility is evaluating the impact of the war as oil and gas prices continue to soar.
“With the war in Ukraine and Russia, oil and gas prices are escalating. We are looking at options… but if the price of oil has to double, it is going to impact the energy that we can produce from diesel going forward.”
Cassim says although Eskom doesn't have direct suppliers from Ukraine or Russia, it can only afford diesel up to a certain point.
“Eskom, from a cash flow perspective, can only afford so much on diesel, and we will get to a point where we just don’t have funds to pay for additional diesel beyond a certain point. We should look at the performance of the generation feed and that is the area we need to address to mitigate against future load shedding. But bottom line is, we don’t have the chequebook to continually spend on diesel.”
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