Thousands of restaurants countrywide have already been forced to curtail their operations as a nationwide shortage in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) threatens to worsen.
The shortages are as a result of planned and unplanned shutdowns of the country’s oil refineries.
Blockmans Grill restaurant manager, Lisa Morkel, said the Pinetown, Durban restaurant had had to work smarter to cope with the crisis.
“This has caused a great deal of stress because no gas means that the restaurant may have to close down. The scary thing is that we are not sure when it will recover.”
Homeowners have also been affected.
Ntombi Sikhakhane, 37, from Inanda, experienced serious inconvenience trying to find gas last week when her family was preparing for an event.
She said after much frustration, they eventually found gas in Newlands.
“We were limited to buying one gas cylinder per customer and the prices have almost doubled because of the shortage,” she said.
Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa’s CEO, Brett Dungan said, “Most stoves in the hospitality industry operate on gas.
“With the electricity hikes, this is another nail in the coffin.”
Restaurant Association of SA CEO, Wendy Alberts said, “We have been given the assurance that they are working on it speedily and we appeal to landlords to apply pressure so that malls and restaurants can operate fully.”
Crematoriums that depend 100 percent on gas have been hit hard, says the Durban’s head of Parks, Recreation and Cemeteries, Thembinkosi Ngcobo.
“There was no gas last week and for obvious reasons we can’t keep bodies for over a week.
“We have had to refer clients to Clair Estate,” said Ngcobo.
He said the city was looking at returning to 100 percent capacity this week but it was uncertain what would happen in the weeks that followed.
“Every week is a challenge, cremation services are delayed, debt is accumulating and some have had to opt for graveyard burials,” he said.
However, for Clair Estate Crematorium, a private establishment, it was business as usual, said a staffer who did not want to be named.
“We haven’t been affected yet. We still have enough gas for the next two weeks,” he said.
With COP17 around the corner, the city was adamant that the crisis wouldn’t affect the summit.
The city’s spokesman, Thabo Mofokeng said, “At this moment the city is not worried about the gas shortage.”
Afrox corporate communications manager Simon Miller said it could be a long time before things were back to normal.
“We are looking to at least December, according the SA Petroleum Industry Association.”
Under normal circumstances, only one refinery at a time is closed for maintenance, according to schedules which are agreed with the Department of Energy, says Miller.
“If a second refinery goes down due to technical problems (unplanned shutdown), there are supply issues, but the industry normally struggles through with imports.
“This time three to four refineries went down at roughly the same time and demand overwhelmed supply.
“Keep in mind these latest interruptions are unprecedented,” said Miller.
Regarding increased prices, he said, “Gas prices to domestic households are regulated by government, and any increases have to be sanctioned or they are illegal.
“Gas to industry is not regulated and where customers are offered imported product they agree to cover the extra import costs.
“This is a major crisis for the whole country because we are unable to service our customers.
“We import our gas but we can’t import enough to even dent the demand,” Miller admitted.
Easigas’s Lorraine van Wyk said, “The biggest problem we have in our country is the lack of infrastructure to store the LPG.
“And because the refineries are old they need to undergo planned maintenance and the shutdown may happen intermittently, like now.”
Engen’s spokeswoman Tania Landsberg said they had informed their clients of the shutdown.
“The annual shutdown was a planned maintenance scheduled a year ago, and we had informed our clients three months prior to the shutdown to make arrangements independent of Engen.
“We only started the shutdown on October 15, and we have a good six weeks to go,” she said.
Econometrix managing director Rob Jeffrey said service and food industries would continue to suffer if the shortage was not managed soon.
“Productivity industries like mining and manufacturing have also been hit hard.
“There is no productivity and that may reduce our exports,” said Jeffrey.
He said while this had affected the country’s GDP, in reality employment levels had been reduced.
“This ultimately affects investment decisions in the long term,” said Jeffrey. - Sunday Tribune