SOUTH African power company Eskom made a profit of 83 million rand ($5.5 million) in the six months to the end of September as higher electricity tariffs offset lower sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, it said this week.
However, the state-owned utility, which is reliant on government bailouts, said its performance would deteriorate in the second half of its financial year and it would report an annual loss of about 22 billion rand.
Eskom tends to report stronger results in the first six months of its fiscal year because of factors including higher demand during the southern hemisphere’s winter, lower purchases from independent power producers and less routine maintenance.
In the six months to the end of September 2019, Eskom made a revised 1.9 billion rand loss.
Eskom said at a news conference that its debt had fallen to about 464 billion rand by the end of September from 484 billion rand in March as repayments outstripped new debt raised.
(SOURCE: Reuters)
