Mozambique: Mozal Suffers From South African Energy Crisis

Mozambique’s production and exports of aluminium will be lower than hoped this year, thanks to electricity shortages in South Africa.

Raitt Marshall, managing director of the MOZAL aluminium smelter on the outskirts of Maputo, confirmed on Tuesday that this year would see a reduction in exports, but did not put a figure on this.
Speaking at the latest of MOZAL’s six monthly meetings with interested members of the public, Marshall said that in late January this year, MOZAL received instructions to reduce its electricity consumption by 10 per cent (normal consumption at the smelter is around 950 megawatts, making MOZAL far and away the largest consumer of electricity in Mozambique).

The power for MOZAL comes from MOTRACO, a company formed by the South African, Mozambican and Swazi electricity companies, Eskom, EDM and SEB – but MOTRACO draws its power from Eskom. Thanks to chromic under-investment in new plant, Eskom is no longer able to meet the demand from all its clients, and so rolling power cuts hit South Africa early this year.

AllAfrica