Johnathan Paoli
In a statement released on Monday, Eskom announced that the former Chief Operating Officer (COO), Jan Oberholzer, has parted ways with the power utility, by what is claimed as mutual consent.
Oberholzer had signed a two-year contract in June, to assist in the support specifically of the Long-Term Operation (LTO) currently underway at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in addition to the Kusile Power Station project.
Oberholzer officially retired from the position of COO, back in April ending a 30-year tenure, but returned for the fixed contract to oversee the two key power stations of Koeberg and Kusile.
Despite the fairly recent ending of the contract, Eskom maintains the mutuality of the agreement, with Oberholzer working until 31 July.
“Eskom expresses gratitude to Mr Jan Oberholzer for his dedicated service, expertise and valuable contributions during his tenure,” said Eskom’s spokesperson Daphne Mokwena.
The power utility has come under recent attacks following the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) review mission to Koeberg which revealed that the life extension project was in crisis and comments made by the Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, that he is “very, very worried” about the ongoing maintenance at the Koeberg nuclear power station.
The current situation at Koeberg being that one of the two generating units has been offline since November 2022 to undergo necessary refurbishment and is expected to return to service in August 2023, with the other unit subsequently being placed offline for its respective maintenance.
Ramokgopa has furthermore expressed doubts that the offline unit will be able to return to service in August, and could continue being offline until 2024 due to delays in its servicing. Consequently both Koeberg units would be offline, and considering that one unit at Koeberg generates nearly 1 000MW of power, the loss of one would amount to a single stage of load shedding.
This would mean a further escalation of load shedding for the country.
Since Oberholzer was involved in the LTO project in order to extend life expectancy at the Nuclear Power station, it remains unknown whether the former COO’s departure bears any relation to the issue and what consequences his absence will hold for the projects.
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