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London - South African state utility Eskom has one unit shut at its Duvha power plant due to a breakdown of a conveyor belt used to move coal into the plant, an Eskom spokesperson said.
But according to power industry sources, two units were shut on Tuesday at Duvha because there was insufficient coal in stocks of the right quality to run all the units.
"There was a mechanical problem with the conveyor but our engineers are working on it now and it will be fixed shortly. There is sufficient coal at the plant - none of our plants have stocks of less than 6 days," Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said.
However, according to power industry sources, much of the stocks at Eskom's 6 largest plants are fines - a powdered form of coal - rather than the homogenous-sized lumps which the plant conveyors and crushers are designed to handle.
These fines need to be blended with coal of the right size and quality which is trucked in, often considerable distances, in order to be burned, the sources said.
Eskom has this year used export quality coal as well as run-of-mine (ROM) unwashed coal intended for export, to blend with fines, they said.
Reuters