Eskom. Burning enough diesel to fuel 42 million Hilux bakkies in 5 years.

Over its past five financial years, Eskom has spent nearly R65 billion on diesel to run its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) — enough to fill nearly 42 million Toyota Hilux bakkies.

This is according to public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, who revealed the information in response to parliamentary questions from Democratic Alliance MP Farhat Essack.

Eskom’s OCGTs are “peaking” power stations — expensive but able to rapidly dispatch electricity during emergencies to ensure the grid’s stability.

It has been running these plants heavily in recent years to decrease and avoid load-shedding.

The power utility’s diesel spending in the 2020 and 2021 financial years was similar at R5.80 billion and R5.75 billion, respectively.

It took a significant step up during the 2022 financial year when it spent R8.60 billion on diesel. However, this was substantially less than it spent in the following two years.

Eskom spent R21.25 billion on diesel to run its OCGTs in the 2023 financial year, and this increased further to R23.38 billion in 2024, bringing its total for the five years to R64.78 billion.

However, it should be noted that average fuel prices in the 2023 and 2024 financial years were significantly higher than in the years prior.

The table and chart below summarise Eskom’s diesel spend on OCGTs over the past five financial years.

Enough diesel to fill 49.4 million Toyota Hilux bakkies

MyBroadband estimated how many Toyota Hilux bakkies could have been filled with the amount of diesel Eskom burned over the last five years.

Most non-modified Toyota Hilux bakkies are equipped with 80-litre fuel tanks.

Eskom procures diesel from several companies, including Astron, BP, Engen, Shell, and national fuel company PetroSA.

Unfortunately, the price Eskom pays to procure diesel isn’t readily available. However, several factors impact the prices it pays and there have been times when it pays more than the price South Africans pay at the pump.

In February 2023, Eskom’s contracted fuel supply prices were R23.51 per litre with PetroSA, R20.36 per litre with Engen, R20.28 per litre with Astron, and R20.22 per litre with Shell.

However, it paid as much as R26.00 per litre through PetroSA in November 2022 — R1.00 more than the pump price at the time.

We calculated the average fuel price for each year during the reporting period to determine the number of litres Eskom burned.

It should be noted that these are only estimates and don’t account for fluctuations in monthly diesel spending for each year. For example, OCGT usage is often higher during winter.

They also don’t take into account the bulk discounts that Eskom receives.

Based on our estimates, Eskom paid approximately R14.69 per litre on average during the 2020 financial year, R12.77 per litre in 2021, R16.29 per litre in 2022, R23.31 in 2023, and R21.77 during the first three months of 2024.

Over the five-year period, the power utility burnt approximately 3.35 billion litres of diesel, enough to fill roughly 41.9 million 80-litre Toyota Hilux bakkies.

The table provides estimates of how many litres of diesel Eskom burnt each year and how many Toyota Hilux bakkies could be refuelled based on these figures.

As posted by mybroadband.co.za