eBusiness Weekly
Tapiwanashe Mangwiro
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange dual listed regional cement manufacturer, PPC, has said its Zimbabwe operations have been affected by loadshedding which has seen the country experience between 16-18 hours without electricity.
In an operational update for the 12 months ended March 31, 2023, the group said PPC Zimbabwe has engaged the authorities to reduce the impact of the lack of electricity on critical industrial sectors such as cement manufacturing and to ensure a level playing field with importers.
“Sales volumes in the second half of FY23 have been muted due to significant power interruptions and a more gradual than anticipated recovery of market share lost to imports,” reads part of the update.
This comes after Energy and Power Development Minister, Zhemu Soda, yesterday told Parliament last week there was great unreliability when it comes to Hwange Power Station.
Soda was responding to legislators in the National Assembly who wanted to know why ZESA had stopped issuing load-shedding schedules.
“At the moment, it’s very difficult to come up with a schedule because we have unplanned power outages at Hwange due to its age. We cannot plan well based on the capacity of Hwange. We have unplanned outages that are occurring from Hwange. In the morning today, we were obtaining a capacity of 387 megawatts, and you will be surprised that it can go down to 100 megawatts,” he said.
“The four units that are currently on service, some would have gone out of service. So the power station is not reliable at the moment because of age. We will soon be availing a load-shedding schedule after the coming in of Units 7 & 8. If there is going to be any deficit after the two units come in, then ZESA will have to give a load-shedding schedule.”
Zimbabwe has a peak demand of 2 000MW, but according to the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) website, Kariba South, which has a capacity of 1 050MW at its hydroelectric power plant, was yesterday producing 200MW.
As at September 30, 2022, PPC Zimbabwe reported a decline in sales volumes of 13 percent for the first six months of FY23 due to the impact of a longer than usual kiln stoppage to implement operational and environmental performance improvements with the expectation that sales volumes would recover in H2 of FY23.
For the full year, PPC Zimbabwe therefore expects sales volumes to decline by 14 percent to 18 percent compared to FY22.
