9 October 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican government is working with the South African authorities to ensure the resumption of full supplies of electricity to the MOZAL aluminium smelter on the outskirts of Maputo.
MOZAL uses about 900 megawatts of power. This electricity comes from the company MOTRACO, which was set up specifically to cater for MOZAL's needs. Although MOTRACO is owned jointly by the Mozambican, South African and Swazi electricity utilities (EDM, Eskom and SEB), the power it provides to MOZAL is purchased from Eskom.
The arrangements for MOZAL are completely separate from the sale of 1,300 megawatts of power from the Cahora Bassa dm on the Zambezi to Eskom.
Because of the South African government's refusal to allow Eskom to invest in new plant earlier this decade, Eskom has been running short of power. In early 2008, Eskom had to impose rotating power cuts on its South African clients, since it was unable to meet demand.
One drastic measure taken by Eskom was to demand that major industrial clients reduce their power consumption by 10 per cent. Those clients included three aluminium smelters - Bayside and Hillside in Richards Bay, and MOZAL in Maputo.
But the Mozambican government does not see why Mozambique, which exports power to South Africa, should pay for a South African electricity crisis. Energy Minister Salvador Namburete told reporters that the government has been negotiating with the South Africans to minimize the losses to Mozal.
"We immediately acted to avoid losses to Mozal", he said. "Bearing in mind that Mozambique exports natural gas and electricity to South Africa it made no sense for Mozal to be affected by this decision".
As a result of the Mozambican protest, Mozal has been allowed to cut its power consumption by only four per cent rather than ten per cent. But the government wants the restrictions completely lifted. Namburete revealed that last week he had held a meeting with the South African Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica.
"There have been a series of negotiations between the Mozambican and South African governments", he said. "As a result this reduction of ten per cent, recommended by South Africa, has fallen to four per cent, and we are in the process of eliminating the reduction completely".
In the meeting with his South African counterpart, "the vision of the two government was clear", Namburete added. "Soon the two governments, and staff from the energy sector of both countries, will meet in Maputo to solve this situation definitively, and stop the continued punishment of Mozal".
"The South African government understands that Mozambique is right", he said. "We supply electricity that they consume, and it makes no sense that they should penalize a Mozambican company".
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