Eskom’s R800 million per month diesel bill is unsustainable – DA

THE Democratic Alliance (DA) says the announcement by Eskom Chief Operations Officer Jan Oberholzer that the power utility has burned through 40 million litres of diesel so far this month highlights the urgent need for the government to heed its call for Eskom to be declared a State of Disaster.

This after the power utility’s COO, Jan Oberholzer, explained earlier that Eskom was burning a lot of diesel in its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) — around two million litres a day.

Oberholzer said that, as a result, Eskom might have to increase the load-shedding level to Stage 4 in the event of further breakdowns to manage its diesel reserves.

He also admitted that it was “unsustainable” to use diesel this extensively.

The DA said the latest information from Eskom indicates that the power utility has 1 904MW offline for planned maintenance and a further 17 255MW offline from unplanned outages.  

This represented approximately