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Terence Creamer

Terence Creamer is the Editor of Engineering News and a Deputy Editor for Mining Weekly. He also has editorial responsibility for Polity.org.za and Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa.

Editorial Insight

Light from the Tower of Babel

By: Terence Creamer 5th May 2023 South Africa’s electricity discussion has become far less coherent in recent months, taking on all the characteristics of the Tower of Babel, despite the fact that most of the mixed messages have been delivered in English. Even on points where agreement should be relatively straightforward to... →

Last out?

By: Terence Creamer 28th April 2023 Swedish Ambassador to South Africa Håkan Juholt made a profound point at a recent workshop hosted to discuss decarbonisation options for South Africa’s steel value chain, which currently employs some 260 000 people. The politician-turned-diplomat quoted late Swedish trade unionist and politician... →

Dimming the light

By: Terence Creamer 21st April 2023 There was so much to be concerned about after the first formal report back by South Africa’s newly appointed Minister of Electricity earlier this month that it is difficult to know where to begin. Held at the Union Buildings following Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s two-week tour of 15 Eskom power... →

Bad idea

By: Terence Creamer 14th April 2023 Given the depth of the electricity crisis and the lack of trust surrounding Eskom and government’s response – a deficit that has arguably been amplified with the declaration of the crisis as a state of disaster – it is not always possible to immediately discern whether a development is... →

Walk and chew gum

By: Terence Creamer 7th April 2023 Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa may have been making a nuanced point when indicating that his immediate priority was on improving Eskom’s generation performance rather than its restructuring. Nevertheless, the statement could still have negative consequences. Naturally, the... →

Co-created solutions

By: Terence Creamer 31st March 2023 Even though South Africa’s just energy transition has not really started, there is already significant cynicism and even resistance. This is to be expected for several reasons, not least the fact that South Africa is generally big on promises but not actual delivery. In the worst cases, resources... →

As clear as mud

By: Terence Creamer 24th March 2023 The messages around the future governance of South Africa’s large and seriously underperforming State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) are incredibly mixed. On the one extreme is the message that these SOEs will, in future, fall under their line departments; a move that runs counter to current policy and... →

Staying in his lane?

By: Terence Creamer 17th March 2023 By embracing the ‘project manager’ moniker, Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has moved to sidestep any immediate conflict with political heavyweight Gwede Mantashe, the country’s Mineral Resources and Energy Minister. While this embrace displays the type of political savvy that one... →

Right to be paranoid

By: Terence Creamer 10th March 2023 Some of the reactions to the regulations that were belatedly published to give effect to the state of disaster declared to tackle South Africa’s more than decade-old electricity crisis could be dismissed as paranoid and alarmist. However, given the trust deficit that now prevails around public... →

No way back

By: Terence Creamer 3rd March 2023 The explosive eNCA interview with André de Ruyter truly rammed home what most people, besides those with their noses in the looting trough, already knew: relying primarily on Eskom Generation to extract the country from its deepening electricity crisis would be reckless. Eskom Generation is not... →

Wake-up call

By: Terence Creamer 24th February 2023 The European Union’s (EU’s) decision to proceed with the implementation of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) has serious implications for South Africa and Africa. In terms of an agreement reached in December, the CBAM will be implemented later this year and will initially cover the... →

Distracting narratives

By: Terence Creamer 17th February 2023 With a few notable exceptions, the Members of Parliament who participated in the recent Eskom briefing on the immediate outlook for loadshedding and what was being done to tackle the crisis, continued to confuse the problems and the solutions. These lawmakers are members of committees tasked with... →

Trust deficit

By: Terence Creamer 10th February 2023 While the plan for tackling South Africa’s long-running power crisis has broadly taken shape, well-founded concerns persist. Many of these anxieties are not currently with the plan itself, which rests on two pillars: turning around the dismal performance of Eskom’s coal fleet; and adding much... →

Taxing issue?

By: Terence Creamer 3rd February 2023 Unlike President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has requested the Eskom board to act unlawfully by not implementing a tariff decision arrived at by an independent regulator, various opposition parties and civil society groupings have, quite correctly, taken the matter to court for adjudication. The courts... →

Muddling problems and solutions

By: Terence Creamer 27th January 2023 South Africa’s power crisis is effectively death by a thousand cuts. It’s the consequence of decades of poor policy choices and inappropriate regulation, pitiable governance at Eskom, which enabled highly damaging political interference, and the extremely poor management of the old plants and... →

Regressive step

By: Terence Creamer 20th January 2023 The African National Congress’ resolution to relocate the country’s large State-owned enterprises (SOEs) under their line departments is a regressive step for governance and bad news for development and growth. The decision, post-apartheid, to uncouple Eskom, Transnet and the other dominant SOEs... →

‘Mutually dependent’

By: Terence Creamer 16th December 2022 German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, made two provocative points during the fourth German-African Business Summit, which took place in Sandton earlier this month. The first was that there can no longer be a trade-off between industrial... →

Disappointing outcome

By: Terence Creamer 9th December 2022 Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has attempted to put a positive gloss on its recent attempt to sell 16 slots on its Cape and Container corridors that resulted in only one applicant emerging as a potential third-party operator. In reality, it is not a positive outcome, particularly in light of the... →

Dire warning

By: Terence Creamer 2nd December 2022 By this time next week, Eskom is likely, against the advice of some, to have shut Koeberg Unit 1 for an extended refuelling and maintenance programme that is scheduled to continue for between 180 and 200 days. The long-duration outage is part of an Eskom plan to extend the life of the nuclear... →

Recovery with risks

By: Terence Creamer 25th November 2022 Besides the shock resignation of acting generation MD Rhulani Mathebula, who himself stepped in to the role when Phillip Dukashe resigned in May, there were few surprises in Eskom’s latest state of the system update. The prognosis for loadshedding – which had already been implemented on 155 days... →

Just the start

By: Terence Creamer 18th November 2022 It has been a big couple of weeks for South Africa’s nascent and, at times, half-heartedly supported just energy transition. It began on the morning of November 4 when the World Bank Group approved a $497-million package for the ‘Komati Just Energy Transition Project’, which will include both... →

Stop playing politics

By: Terence Creamer 11th November 2022 Recent events confirm that, while South Africa’s energy transition is firmly under way, political obstacles persist – ones that are undermining not only ensuring speedy resolution to the country’s long-running electricity crisis but also increasingly placing the economy’s long-term... →

End of the road?

By: Terence Creamer 4th November 2022 After more than ten years of resistance, several years of defiance and many false starts in finding an acceptable resolution, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement that Sanral’s R47-billion Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) debt is to be transferred to the national and Gauteng... →

Electric evolution

By: Terence Creamer 28th October 2022 The recent unveiling of the four independent power producers (IPPs) that succeeded in navigating Eskom’s inaugural leasing of grid-ready land in Mpumalanga included a number of important signposts in South Africa’s electricity market-reform journey. Firstly, it showed that, despite its deep... →

Cause versus effect

By: Terence Creamer 21st October 2022 The fabricated argument that the energy transition is to blame for loadshedding in South Africa, rather than the dismal performance of Eskom’s coal and nuclear plants, is a social-media staple these days and is increasingly making headway with some political, business and labour leaders. It’s a... →

Procurement problems

By: Terence Creamer 14th October 2022 Given the urgency to inject new electricity into South Africa’s load-shedding-prone grid, it is crucial that the procurement rhythm for utility scale projects be re-established and accelerated. This rhythm was seriously disrupted in 2015, when the State-captured Eskom leadership at the time... →

Debt in focus

By: Terence Creamer 7th October 2022 The load-shedding crisis and the attention given to the reconstitution of the Eskom board not only served to eclipse deliberations on Eskom’s request for a 32% tariff increase but also the linked issue of addressing the utility’s unsustainable R400-billion debt. CFO Calib Cassim made passing... →

No damp squib

By: Terence Creamer 30th September 2022 In any other year, Eskom’s request for a 32% tariff hike would have hogged the print and online media headlines and consumed hours of interview and talk-show time across all broadcast platforms. This year, however, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) hearings were entirely... →

Vicious cycle

By: Terence Creamer 23rd September 2022 Eskom’s summer outlook presented to lawmakers recently is incredibly disturbing and shows that the near-term prognosis for security of supply is as bad as it’s ever been. Even though the utility’s ‘base case’ is premised on more realistic, albeit far higher, unplanned breakdowns of 13 000 MW,... →

Fatal flaws

By: Terence Creamer 16th September 2022 The 40-page judgment delivered earlier this month by High Court Judge President Selby Mbenenge in relation to the granting and renewal of an oil and gas exploration right to Shell and partners off the Eastern Cape coast is worthy of reflection given its implications for project development in... →

Fuller visibility

By: Terence Creamer 9th September 2022 The scale of South Africa’s energy transition challenge – and opportunity – is arguably not yet fully appreciated. Eskom itself estimates that at least R1.2-trillion in electricity investment will be required before 2035 simply to stabilise supply amid coal decommissioning. →

Crucial link

By: Terence Creamer 2nd September 2022 South Africans won’t agree with all the analysis and recommendations contained in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) latest report on South Africa. There is likely to be particular objection to the suggestion that an enforcement mechanism be developed to allow... →

Attention to detail

By: Terence Creamer 26th August 2022 From a high level the energy transition pathway for South Africa is clear. The country needs to shift from a highly centralised, top-down market structure to a more decentralised and bidirectional model, involving many more participants. →

No big bang

By: Terence Creamer 19th August 2022 Some sense seems to have prevailed at the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) regarding the implementation of a new electricity price determination methodology. In a statement confirming that the deadline for comments on the proposed methodology has been extended, the regulator... →

End of the beginning

By: Terence Creamer 12th August 2022 It goes without saying that having a plan to tackle load-shedding represents little more than the ‘end of the beginning’. That’s not to in any way undermine the importance of that beginning. Without the July 25 plan there would be little or no prospect of overcoming the immediate problem of... →

Energy required

By: Terence Creamer 5th August 2022 Opponents of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s strategy for tackling South Africa’s 14-year-old electricity crisis continue to argue, without evidence, that the interventions will have no impact on load-shedding because of the absence of ‘baseload’. In reality, there is no, and never has been, a... →

Confusing signals

By: Terence Creamer 29th July 2022 Given the high levels of mistrust and misinformation in energy markets currently it has become increasingly difficult to discern what is required to improve the situation in the short-term, while also ensuring that those immediate actions do not come back to haunt us in the future. Without doubt,... →

The need for speed

By: Terence Creamer 22nd July 2022 A recent bidders conference hosted by the Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office was instructive for many reasons. For one, it highlighted the technical and legal sophistication of the procurement processes that have emerged, and evolved, since the start of the Renewable Energy Independent Power... →

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