{"id":8075,"date":"2012-02-17T14:08:20","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T12:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/update-1-merafe-xstrata-jv-to-shut-furnaces-to-aid-eskom\/"},"modified":"2012-02-17T14:08:20","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T12:08:20","slug":"update-1-merafe-xstrata-jv-to-shut-furnaces-to-aid-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-merafe-xstrata-jv-to-shut-furnaces-to-aid-eskom\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Merafe-Xstrata JV to shut furnaces to aid Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Will shut 5 furnaces until end-May<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* To lose 100,000 T of output<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Customers will not be affected<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Feb 17 (Reuters) &#8211; A joint venture<br \/>\nbetween South African ferrochrome producer Merafe Resources<br \/>\n and London-listed Xstrata will shut five of its<br \/>\nfurnaces until the end of May to help power utility Eskom manage<br \/>\na tight electricity supply.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The companies said 100,000 tonnes of production would be<br \/>\nlost as a result of the agreement, but there would be no impact<br \/>\non supplies to customers in the second quarter.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>State-owned Eskom would buy back the energy that<br \/>\nwould have been used by the furnaces, they added.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The companies said the furnaces will undergo maintenance<br \/>\nduring the shutdown and there would be no job losses.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>They said the Rustenburg smelter&#8217;s energy efficiency is<br \/>\nexpected to improve when a new sintering and pelletising plant,<br \/>\ncurrently under construction, becomes operational in the second<br \/>\nhalf of this year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa has been struggling to meet demand for power as<br \/>\nnew power plants meant to plug the shortfall have been delayed.<br \/>\nSupply will remain vulnerable until the first units of Eskom&#8217;s<br \/>\nnew stations become operational next year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The national grid nearly collapsed four years ago, forcing<br \/>\nmines and smelters to shut for days and costing Africa&#8217;s top<br \/>\neconomy billions of dollars in lost output.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Will shut 5 furnaces until end-May * To lose 100,000 T of output * Customers will not be affected JOHANNESBURG, Feb 17 (Reuters) &#8211; A joint venture between South African ferrochrome producer Merafe Resources and London-listed Xstrata will shut five of its furnaces until the end of May to help power utility Eskom manage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}