Related Articles
Top Stories
May 24 2012 17:31
The Reserve Bank will maintain current interest rates, and a sizeable reduction in the local petrol price is expected, says governor Gill Marcus.
May 24 2012 15:29
The Reserve Bank will maintain current interest rates, says governor Gill Marcus.
May 23 2012 22:00
Economic liberation or the lack thereof is the most divisive issue in the country, according to a survey.
Cape Town - The days of the pebble-bed nuclear reactor (PBMR) company are numbered - at least as far as its current form and government financial support are concerned.
In its 2009 annual report published at the end of last year, the company states unambiguously that government has indicated that it will be unable to provide financial support for the company in the financial year ending March 2011 - or for the foreseeable future.
According to the group's recent annual reports the PBMR's operating costs have risen from R874.7m in the 2006 financial year to R1.962bn in 2009.
By March 2009 the government had funded the PBMR to the tune of R5.895bn. Together with capital contributions from shareholders Eskom, Westinghouse and the industrial development Corporation (IDC), the total was R7.721bn.
In the 2007 annual report it was estimated that the entire project - to build a demonstration reactor at Koeberg, as well as a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant - would cost R17bn. But by the 2008 financial year the total cost was estimated at R31.9bn.
A long-term retention bonus scheme was introduced in December 2005 to retain critical skills.
The scheme started out with an amount of R10.607m, but the first payments were made only in December 2008.
In the 2009 annual report the PBMR's audit, risk and finance committee warns that the company's ability to continue as a viable concern depends on whether it can get adequate finance to meet its commitments, as well as continued support from its funders. Government has so far been its main support.
In the report PBMR chairperson Dr Alistair Ruiters explains that the international credit crisis has forced government to make massive loans available to Eskom, which means that projects that depend on government funding will probably not receive their full allocation is.
The PBMR has therefore drawn up a new business plan and restructured itself as a nuclear engineering company focused on a single product that should satisfy the market for power generation as well as that for industrial heat applications.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.