Page 12 - DMEA Week 47 2022

DMEA REFINING & FUELS DMEA

These might include barista-made coffee, freshly phased approach with a certain number of stores
baked muffins or breakfast packs for busy moth- established every year, after an initial rollout of
ers taking their children to school. 10 Circle K stores at Puma’s forecourts across
“The common thread though is to serve the South Africa. “We also want to penetrate Mpu-
customer first. The average filling station doesn’t malanga, we want to do the same thing in Kwa-
do that today,” Farooqui was quoted by News24 Zulu-Natal and Cape Town,” she said, adding
as saying. that Puma Energy believes Circle K will provide
According to Janet Sithole, Puma Energy’s a retail offering that was different to the rest of
non-fuels retail manager for Africa, the agree- the market.
ment with Circle K was the group’s second with Convenience retailing was growing in pop-
a convenience retailer, with OK Express also ularity in SA, Sithole explained, as this format
present at some of its service stations. gained even more traction among consumers
Sithole told News24 the expansion of the during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
American convenience offering would include a when there was limited movement allowed. ™

South Africa seeks funds to replenish

Eskom’s depleted diesel reserves

AFRICA SOUTH Africa’s Department of Public Enter- According to the department, immediate
prises (DPE) is urgently working with the targets include:
National Treasury and state-owned power util- ·Looking for savings within existing
ity Eskom to find money to buy diesel supplies, Eskom funds for the purchase of diesel and
BusinessLIVE reports. maintenance;
Additional diesel reserves for Eskom will ·Board assessment of the challenges Eskom
help to reduce the higher stages of power cuts, faces in its fleet of power stations and the excep-
known locally as “loadshedding” now in force. tional interventions that must be made to create
The embattled utility warned about a short- more reliability in their performance; and
age of diesel last week, says the media platform. ·Urgently seeking the assistance of all law
Eskom said South Africans should expect enforcement bodies to immediately stop local-
more loadshedding in the coming months as it level disruptions and criminal activities that
embarks on major repairs and a maintenance affect power stations. ™
programme that will increase the risk of outages.
On Sunday, November 20, Eskom
announced that stage 5 loadshedding would
be implemented during the evenings from 4:00
p.m. until midnight from Monday to Wednes-
day and between stages 2 and 4 during the day.
The DPE said its minister, Pravin Gordhan,
met Eskom board members led by chairperson
Mpho Makwana on the night of November 20
as a result of serious concerns about the risk
of higher levels of loadshedding in the coming
months.
“All possible efforts are being made to ensure
all the measures in the national electricity plan
are implemented,” the DPE said, as quoted by
BusinessLIVE. The load-shedding schedule unveiled by Eskom on November 20 (Image: Eskom)

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