South Africa - Chevron Suspends LPG And Bunker Fuel Shipments As Power Shortage Continues

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last night, Chevron Refinery's public affairs manager, Phumi Nhlapo, said it had sufficient diesel and petrol stocks but could not resume production because it did not have a stable power supply. She said the refinery began the "restarting process" on Saturday after Friday's unplanned shutdown caused by the city-wide blackout, but was "unable to move forward with the start-up due to the unavailability of stable power supply".

"Chevron has sufficient stocks of petrol and diesel. However, as this delay in the start-up has affected the refinery's ability to resume production, the refinery will be unable to supply liquefied petroleum gas as of tomorrow and sales of bunker gas oil (for ships) are currently suspended. Bitumen (used to make an adhesive under paving units) stocks are also limited. Although the refinery's jet fuel stocks are also low, contingency plans are being put in place to address this issue," Nhlapo said.

Eskom's Jolene Henn said although a damaged transmission line supplying the Acacia substation which, in turn, supplied power to the refinery, had not yet been "fully restored," Eskom was still supplying power to the refinery.

She could not say how long repairs to the line would take or what needed to be done to get the line up and running. "We are running the second test, which will determine for how much longer the line will be down and what needs to be done (to fix it)." Henn admitted there was a "risk because the line was not fully repaired yet", but emphasised there was no reason why Chevron should be struggling to resume production of gas.

EDIT

http://www.tios.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1014&fArticleId=vn20080206061116591C849175

[phantom power]

1. I am not feeling the cornucopia love today.

[pscot]

2. Negative feedback loops, increasing entropy

= A vicious cycle. Sounds like a model that could become all too familiar.

[gulfcoastliberal]

3. Peak oil will be another one of those things that happen so much "faster than expected".

Not like all kinds of alarm bells are going off or anything.

[speedbird]

4. is the electric power company paying its bills? n/t