Star 2023-09-18

ALTHOUGH public participation meetings were held on September 14 and 15 to discuss the Tubatse pumped storage scheme, Eskom said yesterday at the weekly implementation of the energy action plan briefing that the Tubatse pumped storage scheme was still in the development phase, so questions posed by Business Report could not be answered. To cope with the morning and evening peak demands, Eskom uses pumped storage schemes such as Ingula and expensive-to-run diesel-fueled Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGT). Pumped storage uses off-peak power to pump water to an upper dam and then releases this water to a lower dam to generate power during peak periods. OCGT use diesel to power turbines, but this is more than 20 times more expensive than coal-fired power. The commitment to “keep the lights on”…

Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has promised that the electricity supply will return back to “normality” by the end of next year when Eskom has completed the building and synchronisation of two additional generation units at Kusile Power Station in Mpumalanga. Ramokgopa yesterday announced that Kusile had resumed generating 800MW at its unit 4 after days of not a single generation unit being operational at the troubled power plant. Kusile consists of six 800MW coal-fired generating units which could deliver a combined 4 800MW, but three units that were in service have broken down, while two others have not been synchronised to the grid. Ramokgopa reiterated that Kusile sits on the “critical path” to significantly reducing rotational power cuts which have crippled economic activity for years. He said…

The country’s National Treasury will reopen the R202 (3.45%; 2033) inflation-linked bond SOUTH Africa’s government will soon be going to the capital markets in a bid to raise additional debt to fulfil the 2023/24 financial year’s budget requirements as the State scrambles to cut spending on the back of deterio- rating fiscal metrics. This will likely raise the national debt burden beyond the R4.73 trillion mark, widen the budget deficit above 4.2% of gross domestic product (GDP,) and threaten the budget surplus in the medium-term. The National Treasury has already increased government borrowing to R2 billion a day from the beginning of August to fund its current fiscal deficit and refinance maturing debt on the back of declining tax revenue. The Treasury said on Friday that it would…

MAJOR banks, Absa, FirstRand, Nedbank and Standard Bank, grew headline earnings 16.8% in the first six months, boosted by record profit from other Africa markets and despite rising credit impairments locally, an analysis by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed. As an indication of the general dwindling of fortunes of the South African consumer, the banks’ credit loss ratio of 107 basis points (bps) was well up from 76bps in the first half of 2022. Balance sheet provisions also reached “unprecedented levels” in anticipation of forecast risks, the analysis’ authors said. The cost of risk in the form of credit impairments increased across most lending portfolios. There was also heightened sovereign and currency risks in several African territories, which, coupled with interest rate pressure and the impact of load shedding…

OUTSURANCE Group (OGL), a growing, short-term insurance group operating across South Africa and Australia, lifted its annual dividend more than 100% to 134.8 cents (6.5c) a share for the year to June 30, and shareholders also benefited from an 8.5c special dividend. OGL’s normalised earnings from continuing operations were up a substantial 62.2% to R2.88 billion. Last December Rand Merchant Investment Holdings (RMI) changed its name and started trading as OUTsurance Group on the JSE, as part of a managed transition following the sale of the group’s interest in Hastings in December 2021 and the unbundling of the interests in Discovery and Momentum Metropolitan Holdings to OGL shareholders in April 2022. As at June 30, OGL owned an 89.8% equity stake in OUTsurance Holdings (OHL), 100% in RMI…

PUTPROP Limited, a property investment company, will pay out a dividend of 7 cents per share (6c) for the year to June 30, bringing the dividend for the year to 11.25c (10.25c). The JSE-listed company is active in all property segments. Its portfolio comprises 13 (2022: 15) properties, mainly in Gauteng, with a gross lettable area of 97 601 square metres, valued at about R1.1 billion. Chairperson Daniele Torricelli said on Friday that in the year ahead they planned to continue to realign the portfolio into one containing long-term sustainable tenants occupying properties of high value. This would involve “C” grade properties being disposed of over time and replaced with properties of a higher investment grade with higher contractual rentals from higher calibre tenants. There would also…