News 09:00

BULLETIN 18 January 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Government introduces reserve bidders in the latest renewable energy procurement round
# Transnet today reopens the first of two lines to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal
# And rugby, Manie Libbok will play his 50th match for the Stormers this weekend

# The Independent Power Producers Office will introduce reserve bids for window seven of the Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme. The reserve bids will be leveraged as a backup to avoid further delays in adding capacity to the grid. The IPP Office head of legal, Lena Mangondo, says the seventh bidding round consists of three-thousand-200 megawatts of onshore wind and one-thousand-800 megawatts of solar photovoltaic. She adds that the submission deadline for bids is the 30th of April:

# Transnet says it plans to reopen the first of two coal lines to the country’s major coal export terminal today. A collision of two trains carrying coal on Sunday resulted in the closure of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in KwaZulu-Natal. Coal miners Thungela Resources and Exxaro Resources both said they did not expect the derailment to significantly impact their exports of the fossil fuel. Rail inefficiencies in 2022 alone cost South Africa’s economy 411-billion-rand, with companies only exporting 50.4-million tons of coal through the Richards Bay terminal.

# The Cape Winelands District Municipality’s Fire Services in the Western Cape says the fire that started yesterday afternoon in the Robertsvlei road area in Franschhoek has been fully contained.  The fire was burning in an aged plantation in the area above the Robertsvlei road. The municipality’s spokesperson, Jo-Anne Otto, says no injuries or damage to property was reported:

# A public prosecutor, who was leading the investigation into the attack on an Ecuador TV network, has been assassinated. César Suárez was ambushed, shot, and killed in the crime-ridden city of Guayaquil. Last week armed men stormed the public TV channel TC’s studio during a live broadcast and threatened the staff at gunpoint. One cameraman was shot in the leg. Thirteen people were arrested and a 60-day state of emergency was declared. The country’s attorney general, Diana Salazar, says they will not be deterred in their work for justice.

# Rugby: Springbok flyhalf Manie Libbok will play his 50th match for the Stormers on Saturday when the Cape team takes on Stade Francais in a Champions Cup game in Paris. He made his debut for the Stormers in 2021 and has scored over 400 points already. The Stormers need just two points from the encounter to secure their place in the last 16 of the competition. They are currently placed second in Pool 4 behind Irish team Leinster.  

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 19-rand-1-cent and the euro at 20-rand-71-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-11-cents and Bitcoin trades at 42-thousand-632-dollars-37-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-and-8-dollars-1-cent a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 78-dollars-13-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….