Cape Times 2023-05-19

THE INDUSTRIAL Gas Users’ Association of Southern Africa (Igua-SA) said yesterday that it welcomed the decision by the Competition Tribunal to grant it an interim relief against Sasol Gas from increasing natural gas prices for the next six months. This comes after Sasol Gas, a unit of JSE-listed Sasol in August 2022, notified its customers that it intended to increase its price for natural gas to R133.34 per gigajoule (GJ). Natural gas is an essential input for Igua-SA’s members, which include large industrial users of gas in South Africa. It is not liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) gas that is used in households. This as industrial users are already under immense financial pressure amid unprecedented load shedding in the country and a series of rate hikes. Following an outcry from customers,…

Economist says sustained stage 8 load shedding could plunge growth into another contraction ESKOM could deal a significant blow to South Africa’s already sluggish economic growth prospects this year and potentially plunge the economy into a second recession in three years as the power utility has warned of a high risk of increased stages of load shedding in winter. The struggling power utility yesterday said there was a great likelihood that it could implement stage 8 load shedding this winter, if its interventions are not successful, as the demand for electricity increases due to the cold weather. Presenting its latest Status of the System update and its winter outlook plan, Eskom said 2022 experienced the highest level of load shedding which reduced the third quarter real gross domestic product…

THE RAND YESTERDAY gave back most of this week’s gains, falling near to another record high of R19.41 against the US dollar as the greenback strengthened on a possible solution to the US debt ceiling crisis and expectations of another rate hike. Markets rallied overnight as optimism grew that the US may find a way to lift its debt ceiling and investors have remained focused on any signs of progress in US debt ceiling talks. The stand-off between Democrats and Republicans is likely to be resolved before the crucial June 1 deadline and, if unresolved, could have serious con- sequences for the US and global economy. Also, investors have reduced their bets on a potential pause in the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes next month, with many now increasing…

THE LATEST Quarterly Labour Force Survey results demonstrated yet again the outsized contribution of the agri- cultural sector to the country’s economy and underscored the urgent need to protect the sector from the job-killing impact of load shedding, says Agri SA. Christo van der Rheede, the CEO at Agri SA, said yesterday that the agricultural sector continued to punch above its weight in terms of job creation. “While employment decreased by 0.2% nationally, employment in the sector increased by 3.2%. And though the sector represents 1.5 % of nominal GDP, it makes up 5.4% of the jobs in the country,” Van der Rheede said. He said these figures highlighted the centrality of the agricultural sector to the South African economy and underscored the need to provide targeted relief to the…

AFRIMAT plans to ramp up production at its mines, benefit from efficiency initiatives, further develop its greenfields Glenover project and may even make one or two acquisitions in its new financial year. This was according to chief financial officer Pieter de Wit, who said yesterday after the publication of the group’s annual results for the year to February 28, that the group remained resilient after lower iron ore prices and higher costs – such as for fuel that were beyond the group’s control – caused a dip in headline earnings for the year. He said there were many projects underway with fixed timelines that were not yet contributing to the results, the balance sheet remained strong, with strong cash flows and little debt, and for example, there might be acquisition…

THE SHARE price of Purple Group, the owner of the EasyEquities trading platform, fell nearly 13% yesterday after it announced that it had received JSE approval to proceed with a R150 million rights offer. The share traded at R1.05 around midday, after falling consistently from R2.42 that it traded at a year before on the same day. It closed 8.47% lower at R1.08 on the JSE yesterday. CEO Charles Savage said in a telephone interview that he was happy the planned rights offer – to raise R105m for Purple Group and R45m for EasyEquities – had been well received by shareholders, some of whom had chosen to partially underwrite the offer. “We made the offer at a good discount to the share price. We chose to give the benefits…