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DEMAND for solar panels, batteries and inverters in South Africa goes into hyper-drive every time Eskom announces load shedding, creating sporadic shortages in the local market, Ellies Group chief executive Shaun Prithivirajh said yesterday. He said Ellies, along with other distributors, was faced with substantial difficulties in importing the equipment, because of the very high demand for such products globally, substantial supply chain disruptions emanating from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on global industry, the weakening rand exchange rate, and “when we are finally able to get some panels, we are short of being able to get inverters, or short of batteries”. Ellies imports all its alternative energy products for the local market. He said the problem was exacerbated by the local market where demand spikes sharply when Eskom…
MOTORISTS could be in for another big petrol price cut in September as global oil prices have fallen into a bear market on fears of weakening fuel demand due to the looming recession. This comes as fuel prices eased for the second time this year at midnight as the cost of both types of petrol fell by R1.32, while diesel fell by 88 and 91 cents, and illuminating paraffin was slashed by R1.44 a litre. Falling fuel prices were being driven by a slump in international petroleum prices but were offset by a weaker rand/US dollar exchange rate. But the price of Brent crude oil dipped below the $100-mark per barrel for the second day in a row yesterday after closing strongly at $110 (R1 817) per…
MASSMART Holding’s share price took a massive dip of 7 percent yesterday on the JSE after it flagged a “disappointing” trading update, saying that in the 26 weeks ended June 26, 2022, it expected its headline loss to balloon. This as the retailer fails to turn its fortunes around, with sales falling over the past two years. The shares closed 6.42 percent down at R34.09 on the JSE yesterday and have decreased by 27.3 percent in the past three years. Massmart said its headline loss was expected to broaden to between R910.3 million to R974.3m, compared to R645m in the previous period – a drop of between 41 to 51 percent. Headline earnings per share were likely to fall by between 40.7 to 50.7…
This comes after Minister Ebrahim Patel changes the plan for local-content quotas THE DOMESTIC solar PV industry has called for “data-driven policy implementation” on local content requirements by renewable energy producers, which will be appointed for additional electricity capacity to the grid. This comes after Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel announced late on Monday the cutting of red tape on solar projects in a bid to end load shedding. Under Bid Window 5, Patel said, bidders would now only need to get 35 percent of their solar photovoltaic (PV) cells from local suppliers when previously the requirement was 100 percent. This meant the remaining 65 percent of the solar PV panels could be imported as the local industry might not be able to fully realise…
TELKOM, which has started negotiations about its possible acquisition by MTN, said yesterday that it had achieved stable growth in active subscribers in its first quarter ended June 30. Its active mobile subscribers were up 7.8 percent to 17.3 million year- on-year, the group said in a trading statement. MTN announced last month that it wishes to acquire all of Telkom shares in return for shares or a combination of cash and shares in MTN. “Discussions are at an early stage and still in progress,” Telkom’s management said yesterday. Its pre-paid subscribers grew 7.7 percent year-on-year to 14.5 million. Mobile data traffic increased solidly by 12.4 percent to 263 petabytes supported by a 2 percent growth in broadband subscribers to 10.7 million…
AGRI SA AND the National Wool Growers’ Association of South Africa (NWGA) said that government action needed to stop what they called the unwarranted, job-killing China export ban on South African wool. China is South Africa’s primary wool export market, accounting for about 70 percent of exports. In a joint statement issued by the two agricultural organisations, they said they were extremely concerned about the unjustifiable ban on wool exports to China due to recent Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreaks in parts of the country. The first wool auction for the 2022/23 season was scheduled for August 17 and, with 70 to 80 percent of the South African clip traditionally destined for China, the ban would have a devastating effect on the local wool industry. The value of the…
